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jern sabbath 
questions 
or the people 




Glass 

Book_ 



Modern 

Sabbath Questions 

for the People 



■\i V. BY 

Rev. W. H. McMASTER, Ph.D. 

Field' Secretary 

Lord's Day Alliance of North Carolina 

Home Address; Blairsville, Pa. 



publishers 

Edwards & Broughton Printing Company 

raleigh, n. c. 

1910 






CONTENTS, 



page:. 

Introduction . . . . » 3 

Chapter I 5 

Chapter II 13 

Chapter III 20 

Chapter IV 28 

Chapter V 37 

Chapter VI 43 

Chapter VII 49 

Chapter VIII 59 

Chapter IX ^2 

Chapter X 80 

Chapter XI 84 

Chapter XII 89 

Chapter XIII . 93 

Chapter XIV 97 



By transfer 
The White House 
March 3rd, 1913 



INTRODUCTION. 

Our generation is witnessing a strange spec- 
tacle. More than half a century ago De Tocque- 
ville declared, ''France must have the American 
Sabbath, or she is ruined/' To-day, strangely 
enough, we might almost reverse the terms and 
say, "America must have the French Sabbath, or 
she is ruined/' Since De Tocqueville wrote 
France has been traveling toward the American 
Sabbath, and America toward the French Sab- 
bath of De Tocqueville's day. 

In the year 1906 the French Chamber of Depu- 
ties, after careful investigation by a governmient 
com.mission, passed a law, by the remarkable vote 
of 575 to I, giving to every employee in the 
Republic the right to twenty-four consecutive 
hours of rest every week, and requiring employ- 
ers so to arrange these periods of rest that in the 
case of every employee thirteen of the rest days 
in each year shall fall on Sunday. It is esti- 
mated, on the other hand, that about three mil- 
lion people in the United States are required to 
work seven days every week, and that the num- 
ber of these ceaseless toilers is on the increase. 
This state of affairs is dulling the edge of the 
Christian conscience. Reputable church members 
indulge with less and less compunction in social 
functions, travel, and public amusements, on the 
Lord's day. ''My people love to have it so: and 
what v/ill ve do in the end thereof?" 



There are, however, some signs of a whole- 
some reaction against this widespread desecra- 
tion of the day. The friends of the Sabbath are 
organizing to resist the enemy that has come in 
Hke a flood, threatening to undermine the foun- 
dations and destroy the walls. The Lord's Day 
Alliance of the United States, with headquarters 
in New York, is vigilant and active, and State 
Alliances are growing in number and in aggres- 
siveness. 

There is great need of literature dealing with 
the m.odern phases of the Sabbath question, point- 
ing out in a plain and popular way the divine 
origin and perpetuity of the institution, and the 
dangers that threaten it from pleasure-seeking 
and the greed of gain. It is believed that this 
volume will prove to be a substantial contribution 
to this need. The author is Field Secretary of 
the Lord's Day Alliance of North Carolina, and 
his thoughts on the Sabbath question herein 
expressed have grown out of actual contact with 
practical conditions. 

R. F. Campeki^Iv. 

Asheville, N. C, February i, 1910. 



CHAPTER I. 



THE SABBATH QUESTION, 



By Rev. W. H. McMaster 



Sabbath desecration is a sin more general in 
our land to-day than intemperance. Thousands 
upon thousands of our people who are tem.perate 
desecrate the Lord's day. The agitation of this 
question is urgent and imperative for that very 
reason, and because the present may be the 
crisis — soon it may be too late to turn the tide 
back again to primitive conditions. 

THE EVIIv — DISOBEDIENCE TO GOD. 

It is violation of a divine command. ''Thou 
shalt keep my Sabbaths and reverence my sanctu- 
ary, I am the Lord.'' Sabbath-breakers resist 
divine authority, and are devoid of reverence to 
God. They can not love God and hate his Sab- 
bath at the same time, nor, can they have much 
heart for His service, v/hile they disregard 
this divine command, because the violation of 
God's lavv^ is a transgression against God and 
His government, whoever the transgressor may 
be. The Sabbath as a divine appointment ex- 
isted from the creation and had the divine sanc- 
tion before the decalogue was written on Mt. 
Sinai. God sanctified the Sabbath and incorpo- 
rated the principle of rest into his moral economy 

5 



and it now becomes a moral obligation. When 
a moral law and the law of nature blend into 
one^ that law becomes universal in its application 
and perpetual. Business corporations or railway 
companies are not exempt from the application 
of this law of rest and its penalties. They may 
think they are, but they are not. The writer has 
before his mind six distinct wrecks which oc- 
curred on the main line of the Pennsylvania Rail- 
way in 1902. In these six distinct wrecks, the 
most destructive that year on that line, the losses 
of life and property fell almost exclusively upon 
the railway company. This goes to show, in 
the existing relation between the attendant cause 
and consequent results, corporations or railways 
are not exempt. 

Wilful violation of any divine law destroys love 
for God's worship, or any other acceptable heart 
service to God. The heart must be kept in con- 
dition for service, by living in willing obedience to 
God and His commandments. It seems to be 
forgotten that God commanded, ^'Remember the 
Sabbath day to keep it holy.'' The law of Sab- 
bath observance is not now held sacred as it once 
was; and Sabbath desecration is no longer con- 
sidered to be the sin it once was. 

the: cause:s oi^ sabbath desecration are 

MANII^OIvD. 

They grow out of the antagonism of human 
nature to the divine. The inordinate love of 
pleasure is one cause; ''lovers of pleasure more 
than lovers of God." A sanctified Sabbath is 

6 



conducive to pleasure, but it is spiritual in nature, 
not carnal. Mammon is the open, avowed enemy 
of a sanctified Sabbath. The greed of gain is at 
war with God and the government of God. To 
gratify the passionate greed of gain, we have 
many of the ordinary activities of to-day in op- 
eration; many of these in direct violation of 
civil law, so that in some directions it is difficult 
to distinguish between Sabbath and any day of 
the week. Materialism is the besetting sin of 
this age. All records, restraints, higher interests, 
all our civil and religious liberties maist give way 
before its imperious demands. It assumes the 
place of God as a usurper, and proceeds to 
dispense with divine law, to ignore the govern- 
ment of God, and substitute the human will and 
miodern convenience for law. Love of the world 
includes all worldly pleasures and pursuits on the 
Sabbath day. Sabbath desecration begets irrever- 
ence and irreverence is at the bottom of the evils 
cursing society to-day. 

These causes take the form of traveling upon 
the Lord's day, which leads to almost endless evils, 
such as absence from the sanctuary, from home, 
pleasure seeking and its attendant dangers and 
temptations. The Sunday excursion train has 
become such an unqualified curse to city and com- 
munity as to be abolished by many lines of rail- 
ways. The Sunday newspaper is an unqualified 
evil in our day, breaking down as it does the 
distinction between the sacred and secular and un- 
fitting the mind of its readers for the worship of 
God. These causes of Sabbath desecration are 

7 



multiplying rapidly in our country, and must in 
the end incur the divine displeasure, whether the 
responsibility rests with the state, the government 
or with the Christian church. 

THE REMEDY — THE GOSPEL. 

It is a delusion to suppose the gospel abrogates 
the law. It is not license to sin, but liberty by 
obedience to the law. Our Lord did not destroy 
the law but fulfilled it. He accepted and observed 
the Sabbath in common with all moral precepts 
and principles. The Sabbath as an institution is 
adapted to all classes and conditions of people, 
and is promotive of the highest well-being of men 
upon earth. The greatest possible good is offered 
man in the gospel. It leads him into the best 
condition of life. It is the remedy for the evils 
that scourge our race to-day. This gospel calls 
upon all men (a) to receive the Sabbath as a 
divine appointment, (b) It calls upon all men 
to observe the Sabbath as an ordinance promotive 
of the spiritual life, (c) The gospel requires the 
believer to sanctify the Sabbath as holy to the 
Lord. It should be made a memorial of our 
Lord's resurrection from the dead, (d) If so it 
will be accepted with delight and kept holy out 
of love for our risen Lord. Love is the essence 
of the gospel, the motive to all true obedience. 
'Xove is the fulfilling of the law." 

An efficient remedy will be found at once when 
Christian people, the professed followers, and 
friends of the Lamb, will themselves begin to 
sanctify ahd keep it holy according to the divine 

8 



appointment. ''If ye love me keep my command- 
ments." God has many reasons why he should 
look to His own people to become His witnesses 
and willingly bear testimony for Him by their 
example and lives. It has been well said by an 
eminent writer, ''without a Sabbath true Chris- 
tianity can not long be maintained in any country. 
Without a Sabbath all the means of grace would 
be neglected and in a short time we must sink 
into heathenism." How true the saying of our 
blessed Lord : "The Sabbath was made for man, 
and not man for the Sabbath." 

Dr. MacLeod has said: "Without the Sab- 
bath the Church of Christ could not as a visible 
society exist on earth." "A world without a Sab- 
bath would be like a mian without a smile, like a 
summer without flowers, and like a homestead 
without a garden. It is the most joyous day of 
the whole week." — Beecher. 

the: standard oi^ sabbath obskrvanck — 
i.ife of christ. 

He kept the Sabbath in the right spirit and 
from the best motive. The motive must be the 
glory of God. He was free from all legalism. 
The Pharisees were blindly bound by legalism, 
and governed by the letter of the law. Jesus de- 
clared that the greatest ultimate good fulfilled the 
spirit of the law. It is lawful to do good on 
the Sabbath day; to save life is the exercise of 
mercy. Many perplexing questions arise as to 
what is the exact line of duty in doubtful cases. 
The only solution is to refer these cases to the 

9 



life of Christ. He is our infallible standard at 
all times and upon all questions. If the most 
doubtful questions were only referred in good 
faith to our Lord, the doubts would vanish away. 
They are perplexing, because not submitted to 
the divine mind as the supreme standard. After 
listening to a stirring address on Sabbath observ- 
ance not long ago, a prominent physician declared 
he would never again ride on the train on the 
Sabbath. Most cases would be determined in the 
same way if the conscience were only submitted 
to the will of Christ. 

The example of our Lord healing the sick and 
relieving the suffering on the Sabbath, draws the 
line of distinction and makes it plain between 
works of necessity and mercy on the one hand 
as a Christian duty, and on the other hand work- 
ing, or requiring others to work for gain, social 
visiting on the day thereby keeping others from 
God's house, seeking pleasure and amusements, 
such as baseball, football, card-playing, Sunday 
excursions and reading bad literature. The true 
standard upon all questions is to be found in the 
life and teachings of our Lord Jesus Christ, in 
which we find the Sabbath was sanctified as a 
medium of blessings for all men — a medium 
which brings blessings both spiritual and tem- 
poral to men and at the same time reflects the 
glory of God. 

THK OUTLOOK I^OR SABBATH OBSKRVANCK. 

It is far from being hopeful, from a human 
standpoint. The trend upon all hands is away 

10 



from the divine standard of Sabbath observance. 
Toronto gave way to the street car service on the 
Sabbath a few years ago, and now the old con- 
servative city of Edinburgh follows in the same 
downward course. The ''Sunday'' newspaper is 
being scattered all over our land upon the Lord's 
day much more industriously than mission work 
is done anywhere. The tendencies in all depart- 
ments of life in our land are away from a sancti- 
fied Sabbath day. A pure godly conversation on 
this consecrated day is now limited to the fewest 
number. A serious, grave question arises in the 
Christian mind. The most pertinent question we 
can ask this hour is this : Is the Church of God 
in our own land willing to let the holy Sabbath 
go and allow the saloon to stay ? 

THE change: to thk first day of the week. 

The change was made because of the resurrec- 
tion of Christ on that day. Mark 16:9. The 
resurrection of Christ is fundamental in the gospel 
system and the crowning miiracle of the Bible. 
The change of day has the sanction of Christ him- 
self and his disciples. His numerous appearances 
in the body to his disciples after his resurrection 
were almost invariably on the first day of the 
week. John 20-26. The disciples and early 
Christians were accustomed to meet on the first 
day of the week for worship. John 20-19, Acts 
10:40-41. This fact has additional proof in the 
exhortation of Paul to the Christian churches to 
take up their collections for benevolent purposes 
on that day. 

11 



The day of Pentecost fell on the first day of the 

week, and on that day the Holy Spirit was poured 

out upon the first disciples as never before. But the 

best reason of all is that the first day of the week 

commemorates the finished work of redemption. 

Upon the Lord's day we celebrate the glorious 

gospel truth of a risen, living Saviour. The Lord's 

day upon which he arose from the dead is made 

memorable as the most glorious day in the history 

of the world. 

BiBi,E gi:ms. 

Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy. 
Ex. 20:8. 

Ye shall keep my Sabbaths, and reverence my 
sanctuary : I am the Lord. Lev. 19 130. 

The Sabbath was made for man and not man 
for the Sabbath. Therefore the Son of man is 
Lord also of the Sabbath. Mark 2:27-28. 

If thou turn away thy foot from the Sabbath, 
from doing thy pleasure on my holy day ; and call 
the Sabbath a delight, the holy of the Lord, honor- 
able; and shalt honor him, not doing thine own 
v^ays, nor finding thine own pleasure, nor speak- 
ing thine own words; Then shalt thou delight 
thyself in the Lord, and I will cause thee to ride 
upon the high places of the earth, and feed thee 
with the heritage of Jacob thy father; for the 
mouth of the Lord hath spoken it. Isa. 58:13-14. 



12 



CHAPTER IL 



The: Christian Sabbath — Continued. 



Text: Mark 2:28 — "Therefore the Son of man is Lord also of the 

Sabbath." 

It must be admitted that the Sabbath as an 
institution is founded in the divine appointment; 
indeed our whole system of revealed religion is 
of divine appointment. This is one source of con- 
fidence and comfort, that the entire system of the 
Christian religion is clothed with divine authority. 
Therefore, the ordinances and institutions incor- 
porated into this system of revealed religion, such 
as the sacraments, marriage and the Christian 
Sabbath, are all of divine appointment. The end, 
or object, of this appointment is two-told; the 
good of man and the glory of God. All God's or- 
dinances and appointments are for the immediate 
good of men and at the same time they redound to 
the glory of God. God is glorified when men are 
benefited and blessed. 

First. The Christian Sabbath is an essential ele- 
ment in true morality. There is but one system of 
true morality and that one is revtaled morality. 
Tht Sabbath of the decalogue is a component, es- 
sential element of the decalogue, just as indispen- 
sable as any other commandment, such as the 
sixth, seventh or eighth. This same system of 
morality was in force from the beginning; for 
when God created man he put him under law. 

13 



Man has been under law ever since and that is 
the Moral Law. The Moral Law is perpetual, 
always binding and in force. It applied to our 
first parents and will be binding upon the last 
generation. The Moral differs from the Cere- 
monial. The Ceremonial was limited to one 
economy. The Moral covers all dispensations 
and is the divine standard of Right to-day and 
will be to-morrow. 

It is not optional with us, nor is it a matter of 
choice, whether or not we keep the Sabbath if we 
would be moral according to the Christian stand- 
ard. In proof of this, rewards and penalties are 
still dispensed. In keeping of this fourth com- 
mandment, there is still great reward — as great 
reward to-day as ever before ; and reward is a 
motive to obedience both Godward and man- 
ward. 

Reward may not be the highest motive, but still 
it is a motive. A rich reward was derived from 
the intelligent, conscientious observance of the 
Christian Sabbath by the late William E. Dodge, 
Sr., of our own day, and by Governor Nehemiah, 
of a former dispensation, and by any and every 
other man of any dispensation up to the full meas- 
ure of their obedience. 

Upon the other hand, who will dare to assume 
the position that penalties are not imposed upon 
those who transgress God's law even in our mod- 
ern age, or, in any age. Upon the authority of 
God's own v/ord, the captivity of the Jewish na- 
tion for seventy long years was the penalty, in part 
at least, for the desecration of the holy Sabbath 

14 



for the long period of 490 years. II Chronicles 
36 :2i. Can we deny the plain facts that God im- 
poses penalties upon railroads, upon corporations, 
upon cities, states, and nations, as well as upon 
individuals for their wilful, deliberate desecration 
of the Lord's day? Facts and figures can be 
furnished in proof of this position. Our National 
Centennial Exposition, held at Philadelphia, was 
a credit to our nation and a financial success. That 
exposition kept the Sabbath day. The Chicago 
Exposition, held in 1893, was a reproach to our 
country and that city paid a fearful penalty be- 
cause they assumed the responsibility of throwing 
open the gates in the face of all law and conviction 
to desecrate the Sabbath and dishonor God. The 
Buffalo Exposition defied the law of the Sabbath 
and within their walls and at the court of a Sab- 
bath-breaking institution the Head of our nation 
was stricken down by the assassin. Our nation 
paid a tremendous penalty in precious blood and 
in cash to pay off the deficit. The St. Louis Ex- 
position was a crowning success, for the gates 
were closed every Lord's day. 

Second. The observance of the Christian Sab- 
bath is productive of great good, and promotive 
of the glory of God. 

(a) It is promotive of our spiritual and highest 
welfare. Our spiritual interests are our best in- 
terests after all. Upon the Lord's holy day, 
which the Lord has appointed and blessed, we 
come into sweet communion with our God, and 
his people here upon earth, through the medium 
of his word and worship. The Lord's day is to 

15 



the believing Christian a vivid type of Heaven 
and foreshadows to us that blessed rest that re- 
mains to the people of God. It is more especially 
tipon the Lord's day, that the whole kingdom of 
God is unfolded and opened up to us in all its 
wealth and beauty. The kingdom of grace and 
truth are ours to contemplate and enjoy, and if 
this earthly Sabbath has no enjovinent or felicity 
to any one, how^ could the heavenly? 

i^b) Hut Sabbath observance has its temporal 
blessings as well as spiritual. It is productive of 
i;ood health and loncf life. These are worthv con- 
siderations. The rest of the Lord's day replen- 
ishes wasted strength, refreshing the entire system 
and making ready for the duties of every day life. 

i^c") The change of day does not change or les- 
sen moral obligation. Let tis remember it is the 
province of the Dinvine one. who asserts that he 
himself is Lord of the Sabbath, to make changes 
in his own economv. He has made changes in 
the sacraments of his hotise. li is the Christian 
Sabbath we are called upon to accept and keep. 
There are as many and good argimients for keep- 
ing the Christian Sabbath as there were for keep- 
ing the Jewish Sabbath. The New Testament 
proofs of a change of day from the seventh to the 
first are numerous, btit the conchisive reason for 
the ehanQ*e is the historical fact of the resurrection 
of our Lord occtirring early upon the first day of 
the week. Mark t6:q. Tlie doctrine of the 
resurrection is fundamental in the gospel system. 
The resurrection of our blessed Lord established 
beyond all doubt his claims to be the true Messiah. 



The Christian Sabbath is now a beautiful 
memorial of our Lord's resurrection from the 
dead. Upon the Christian Sabbath we testify to 
the world our belief in a risen, living Saviour, and 
it is a living Savious the world needs. Our ex- 
ample and influence are weighty and wanted upon 
this question. 

(d) There is abundant proof that the Apostles 
and early Christians accepted and observed the 
first day of the week as the Christian Sabbath. 
The appearances of our Lord after his resurrec- 
tion were for the most part on the first day of the 
week. Pentecost fell upon the first day of the 
week. The disciples came together upon the first 
day of the week for the breaking of bread ; and 
systematic giving as an act of worship in gospel 
times was authorized to be observed upon the first 
day of the week. God has set His seal upon the 
first day of the week as the Christian Sabbath. 

(e) The Christian Sabbath must be observed 
and maintained if we will perpetuate and preserve 
the Christian church. If ye yield to the pressure 
of the world upon the question and break down 
the distinction between the sacred and secular we 

mav forfeit all. 

-' 

(f) And there is the need of organized effort 
to preserve a uniform observance of the day. This 
is the day of organized movements. All mission- 
ary and moral reform movements are organized ; 
alone we can do little, united we can do much. We 
need just now to make a brave, united stand as 
loyal Christians and resist this surging, sweeping 
tendency of the world in the direction of a con- 

2 17 



tinental Sunday. The crisis is now upon us ; shall 
we meet it? Our Lord and Master expects this 
much of us as his faithful followers. He has 
called us with a high, holy calling, that we may 
bear witness for him by our example and in- 
fluence, to the end that the law of the Christian 
Sabbath may be maintained before the world and 
to the greater end that his kingdom may be fully 
established in our world. 

Third. But there is the Civil as well as the 
Christian Sabbath. The State is a divine institu- 
tion. The State exists for moral purposes as well 
as civil. It is the province of the State by the ex- 
ercise of her authority to promote good morals 
among the people in order to the public welfare. 
As law-abiding citizens, we have a moral right to 
look to the State, through the civil authorities, to 
protect us against the disturbances and encroach- 
mens of Sabbath breakers. The civil authorities 
must interpose and stop baseball and close up the 
circus show on the Sabbath. That it may do so, 
the State must have a Sabbath law and every 
State in the Union has, except one or two and the 
territories. 

And there must be the enforcement of the Sab- 
bath law by the authorities who are chosen and 
sworn to enforce civil law with a view to giving 
the people good government. The majesty of 
the law must be maintained, if there shall be rever- 
ence or regard for the law. Upon the one hand 
the civil authorities should be sustained and sup- 
ported by Christian sentiment and the united ac- 
tion of the people. 

18 



When such laws as involve a moral principle 
are sacrificed, vice is condoned and crime 
abounds. This of itself is sufficient argument for 
organized effort to obtain a uniform enforcement 
of the law. 

A second argument for a Sabbath law and its 
rational enforcement is that it is to the State we 
look to guarantee to us our God-given inalienable 
rights. Among the many personal rights to which 
we are entitled is the right to the rest of the 
Lord's day. The right to rest on the Sabbath is 
God's heritage to man. 

Just here is where State and municipal govern- 
ments fail. It is supposed 3,000,000 men must 
work in our country on the Sabbath. Is it not 
time for Christian people to espouse the cause of 
the oppressed laborer? Ought not all classes of 
law-abiding people to be made free men in this 
land of freedom ? 



19 



CHAPTER III. 



The Christian and Civil, Sabbath. 



Text: "Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy. Therefore the 
Son of man is Lord also of the Sabbath." 

The Sabbath as an institution is founded in the 
divine appointment and is fortified behind divine 
law. It is one of those complex appointments 
that has its claims upon all classes of people. We 
may shirk, resist and seek to evade those claims, 
but they remain absolute all the same, because our 
moral obligations are born with us and come with 
us when we come into the world. It is not an 
open, optional question with us whether we shall 
accept and observe the Sabbath of the decalogue, 
nor are we at liberty to break down this distinc- 
tion between the sacred and secular. When we 
cease to reverence the Sabbath as holy, we will not 
long have regard for any thing divine. 

The Sabbath is maintained and even perpetu- 
ated both by rewards and penalties. Let us hear 
what the old prophet has to say upon this ques- 
tion : ''If thou turn away thy foot from the Sab- 
bath, from doing thy pleasure upon my holy day," 
etc. There is no higher compensation possible 
to us as moral, spiritual beings than to have our 
delight in the living God, because those who de- 
light in God and in the kingdom of God are the 
very ones in whom He has a supreme delight ; and 

20 



He delights to honor and bless all such in time 
and eternity. 

But how is it in regard to the penalty, because 
all these commandments have their penalties, this 
one as much as any other? In answer, we only 
need to raise this question : Why was the cap- 
tivity of the Jews the long period of seventy 
years? Was it a matter of chance or accident? 
No one believes it. It is supposed that nation 
neglected or robbed God of His Sabbaths for 
seventy Sabbatical years, equivalent to 490 years 
in the aggregate, and 490 divided by seven gives 
us exactly seventy, showing that it was not by 
chance but a matter of exact calculation. The 
whole problem is fully elaborated in the last chap- 
ter of Second Chronicles, 21st verse. The Jewish 
nation gained nothing, even in point of time by 
appropriating the Sabbath to themselves. 

Worldly corporations and some railroad com- 
panies reason along the same line and to the same 
conclusion. They do not recognize that relation 
of cause and effect which exists everywhere; a 
divine principle which holds true in all relations 
of life. To this moral principle Governor Ne- 
hemiah refers in his remonstrance which he makes 
against Sabbath breaking, and he and his com- 
panions w^ere just emerging out of the long cap- 
tivity and understood full well the cause of it. 
''What mean ye by profaning the Sabbath: did 
not your fathers thus, and did not our God bring 
all this evil upon us and upon this city? Yet ye 
bring more wrath upon Israel by profaning the 
Sabbath. Nehemiah 13:17-18. 

21 



Here now is this principle of cause and effect 
in all its logical force, illustrated by one who 
understood it by actual experience. Multitudes 
desecrate this Lord's day in our land. Multitudes 
of people and even great nations may go down in 
the wreck and ruin incident to violated law. But 
the law of God will abide all the same. We can 
violate God's law but we can not repeal it. God 
will enforce every law He has enacted, He will 
preserve these commandments and the sacraments 
of His house and transmit all these to the very 
end of time. It is the poor Sabbath breaker who 
is the loser. He is the loser now and may be all 
through eternity. Just here is our difficulty to 
reach the very classes we need to reach. 

Now let us analyze this Sabbath question for a 
little while and see if it does not have different 
sides, and that each one of these sides, just like 
a diamond, reflects the beauty, beneficence and 
benignity of Him who appointed it and gave it 
to us as a medium of blessings. 

First, is its natural side. The Sabbath is a part 
of creation work. The first Sabbath com- 
memorated Creation work just as the Christian 
Sabbath now commemorates Redemption work, 
and the principle of rest which the Sabbath means 
is incorporated into almost everything around us. 
The animal creation needs rest. Even machinery 
must rest. The reason why we have wrecks all 
over this land and in every department of life is 
because in the rush of business, the greed of 
gain, the lust and love of pleasure multitudes rush 

22 



onward Sabbath day as on week days regardless 
of this divine principle of rest. 

Second, is its spiritual or religious side. The 
observance of the Lord's day in a right manner, a 
right spirit and from a right motive is promotive 
of the spiritual and divine life, and if any one of 
us would attain unto a higher measure of spirit- 
uality, would live and walk in sweet communion 
with God and our fellow men, he will accept and 
observe the Lord's day. If any one neglects the 
Sabbath and the sanctuary on the Sabbath, never 
holds communion with God or God's people on 
His holy day, what can such an one know by 
actual experience of that rest that remaineth to 
the people of God? It is more especially upon 
the Lord's day the whole kingdom of God is un- 
folded and opened up before us ; the kingdom of 
grace and truth are ours to enjoy in this present 
life. We ought while passing through this 
earthly pilgrimage to get an assurance of the fu- 
ture state, and the spiritual world. We ought to 
experience the certainty, the felicity and rest of 
the heavenly life in this world ; and yet how is all 
this possible if we fail to observe the Christian 
Sabbath ? But the Sabbath has its temporal bless- 
ings as well as its spiritual. It is promotive of 
good health and long life, and these ends are to be 
desired. The rest of the Sabbath refreshes and re- 
cuperates the body and mind and renders the 
laboring man ready for the duties of every day 
life. In this way labor becomes elevating and 
ennobling. 

Third, its moral side. The fourth Command- 

23 



ment is a prominent part of the decalogue, and yet 
there is not a superfluous syllable in all this long 
fourth Commandment. The living God who wrote 
it was writing for us and our day as well as a 
distant day. He had in His mind our present in- 
terests, our social relations, our commercial and 
industrial interests ; these were as distinctly be- 
fore His mind yon distant day as they are now. 
His infinite mind is not limited as ours are by such 
conditions as time and space, but all things are 
ever before Him, and known unto Him are all 
things — the end from the beginning. God is 
speaking unto the living in our world to-day. He 
loves our world and the people in it as much as He 
ever did. His infinite mind was able to grasp a 
principle and formulate that principle into a law 
which no legislative body could ever have con- 
ceived ; a law universal in its application, adapted 
to all nations, all people and applying to all times. 
God is still speaking to our world of His holy law, 
and the caims the Sabbath has upon all classes of 
people. Addressing the husbandman of our day, 
the capitalist, the manufacturer, God says, upon 
this rest day, ''Thou shalt not work, thou, nor thy 
son, nor thy daughter,'' etc. The fourth Com- 
mandment is as essential to good morals as the 
sixth, seventh or any other one. 

Fourth, the Christian side of the Sabbath. It 
is as much the Christian Sabbath and for as 
good reasons as ever was the Jewish Sabbath. 
There are, perhaps, eight or ten arguments in the 
New Testament for the change of day over from 
the seventh day to the first day of the week, but 

24 



the conclusive reason for this change is the his- 
torical fact that upon the first day of the week 
our Lord rose from the dead. Mark 16:9. The 
doctrine of the Resurrection is fundamental and 
essential in this gospel system. I Corinthians 
15:13-20. His resurrection was the very climax 
of our Lord's earthly career. By it He established 
His claims to be the true Messiah. What the 
Lord wants of us all is faith in Him and our testi- 
mony concerning Him. He wants us to believe 
in His divinity and His resurrection from the 
dead. Upon this Christian Sabbath we have a 
beautiful memorial of our Lord's resurrection, and 
as we accept and observe the Christian Sabbath 
in a right manner and right spirit we do testify 
before the world and angels our faith in Christ 
and love for Him. In this way we may express 
our love for him. ''If ye love me, keep my Com- 
mandments.'' 

And yet the question arises : How are we to 
keep the Sabbath day ? There are almost as many 
ways of keeping it as there are people. May we 
not as living, loving Christians know how we may 
keep this, His Sabbath, as He kept the Sabbath 
and hallowed it ? The answer is affirmative : We 
may know without doubt. If any of us will take 
this question any Sabbath morning in good faith 
and lay it before him, asking Him, ''Show me 
where I may go on the Sabbath and what may I 
do upon the Sabbath, in distinction from that 
which should not be done upon the Lord's day." 
The key to this whole question and the many per- 
plexities growing out of it, is duty to our Lord 

25 



and love for His cause is always to be kept above 
the love of ease or pleasure by the true Christian. 
And duty is the place of safety. It may even 
be made stronger and said that the place of duty 
is the only assured place of safety. An illustration 
upon this point may be found in the annals of the 
Battle of Gettysburg. It is stated that on the 
afternoon of the second day, a man upon the line 
of the right wing of the Union Army left the lines 
in a terror of fright, fearing he would be killed. 
He went to a house on Washington street, went 
up stairs and crawled under a bed. The same 
afternoon a stray shot from Seminary Ridge 
pierced the wall of that house and this man was 
found dead after the battle. 

Duty and safety are coupled together in the 
ninety-first Psalm and are assured to that one in 
covenant and delighting in the law of the Lord. 

Fifth, the Civil Sabbath. The State is of divine 
appointment as well as the Church and Sabbath. 
It exists for moral purposes as well as civil. It 
is the province of the State to promote and pre- 
serve good morals within her bounds by the ex- 
ercise of the authority vested in her. 

As citizens we have a right to look to the civil 
authorities to protect us against the disturbances 
and encroachments of Sabbath breakers. That it 
may do so, the State has a Sabbath law. Every 
State in the Union has a Sabbath law except Cali- 
fornia, the territories and perhaps one other State. 

By the enforcement of our present Sabbath law, 
we can prevent the baseball game, the open race 
course, and stop the circus show from exhibiting 

26 



on the Lord's day. But there is need of the en- 
forcement of the Sabbath law if it shall become 
efficient. It is the province of the civil authorities 
to enforce the law. They are chosen by the peo- 
ple, sworn and paid for the purpose that our laws 
may be maintained and enforced. Our civil au- 
thorities should be supported by Christian senti- 
ment and united action of the people. Christian 
people of the community should unite and organ- 
ize for law enforcement and to maintain the 
majesty of the law. 

Again, it is to the State we look as citizens to 
guarantee to us our God-given, inalienable rights, 
such as life itself, liberty, the right of pursuit and 
the right to rest from labor upon the Lord's day. 
And yet it is stated that three million men are 
under the necessity of going to their labor upon 
the Sabbath. The cause of the oppressed laboring 
men should command our sympathy, and calls for 
our united effort on their behalf. 

The activities most responsible for growing 
Sabbath desecration are : 

(a) The Sunday newspaper. 

(b) The open post-office. 

(c) The running of trains and carrying the 
mails on the Sabbath. 

We are in the midst of a crisis. It remains to 
be seen whether we will relapse into the conti- 
mental Sunday or arise in the strength of our 
God and redeem this sacred day, that it may be 
preserved. 



27 



CHAPTER IV. 



The: Divine Authority i^or the Christian 
Sabbath and Its Observance. 

Address delivered in First Presbyterian Church 
at Savannah, Ga., March 24, 1909, and also at 
Wake Forest College, Wake Forest, N. C, on 
Sabbath, May 9, 1909, in College Chapel. 

introductory remarks. 

Two great questions of about equal importance 
before the public mind to-day ; these are the tem- 
perance and Sabbath questions. A temperance 
wave is sweeping over the land with tremendous 
power and there is every reason to believe God 
is in this movement because it is for the Kingdom 
of God and glory of God and the good of hu- 
manity. 

But the cause of the Sabbath is of equal im- 
portance in its own intrinsic merits, in its rela- 
tion to the kingdom of God and in the construc- 
tion of Christian character. For this reason we 
already have united organized effort looking to- 
ward a better observance and the preservation 
of the Christian Sabbath. The American Sab- 
bath Union is a national movement, organized in 
Washington, D. C, in 1888, and is international 
with the Lord's Day Alliance of Canada, which 
has already accomplished so much for the people 
of that Dominion. The American Sabbath Union 

28 



comprises fourteen of the larger denominations 
of our country merged into this movement. The 
avowed object of this movement is to reach the 
American people with this Sabbath question and 
create a conviction upon the subject, because if 
we can create a conviction we have found a 
remedy already for Sabbath desecration. But 
we must reach the people in order to touch the 
conscience and come face to face with them in 
their churches, schools, or wherever we can meet 
them. This is a reason why we organize State 
Auxiliaries that we may hold State Conventions, 
and conferences, the more efficiently to reach the 
people. The North Carolina Sabbath Association 
was organized at Greensboro, January 15, 1907^ 
This work for the observance and preservation of 
the Christian Sabbath is directly along the line 
of our Lord's royal commission, which commands 
first to ''go," then, ''teaching them to observe all 
things whatsoever I have commanded you." 

The words of my text are these, "Observe, or, 
Keep the Sabbath Day to Sanctify it as the Lord 
Thy God Hath Commanded Thee." Deut. 5:12. 
Three institutions at least were ordained and 
given of God to man while yet in Paradise. 
These were marriage, the home and the Sabbath. 
But if man stood in need of a day of rest while 
yet in his primeval state of innocence, much 
more does he need this day of rest in his present 
fallen state of sin, suffering and weariness. Rest, 
which the term Sabbath means, denotes man's 
normal condition in striking contrast with one 
of turmoil, conflict and weariness. Rest, peace 

29 



and tranquillity are states of mind which should 
rule and reign supreme within and should be 
in exercise toward God above and toward all men 
about us. But there is a duty, a moral obligation 
in the case. God seems to require a seventh por- 
tion of our time for his own cause and purpose; 
on the same principle he asks a certain propor- 
tion of our income for the same end and object. 

As the origin of the Sabbath is divine, so its 
history and preservation are divine. God com- 
manded his blessing and gave his special sanction 
to the observance of the Sabbath during the 
period of the manna by a supernatural inter- 
position, by which he caused the gathering of six 
days to meet the wants of seven full days, and 
pronouncing a blight upon the gathering of the 
Sabbath Day. Shall we not believe this day is 
as dear now to the divine heart as ever before, 
and may we not believe God is yet protecting 
his holy Sabbath by blessings upon the one hand, 
and it may be a blight upon the other. 

The analysis of the question before us gives 
us: First, the command ''keep the Sabbath''; 
second, the standard of Sabbath observance, to 
''sanctify it,'' and third, the authority for this 
command, and this standard is divine "as the 
Lord thy God hath commanded thee." 

First. The command is divine, it is of God, and 
that to the believing Christian will be argument 
sufficient of itself. One short creed found in our 
Bible is that it is the sovereign prerogative of 
our God to command, and the imperative duty 
of man to believe and obey. But (a) the ob- 

30 



servance of the Sabbath day is no arbitrary com- 
mand, without rational consideration, but one at- 
tended with the utmost rational considerations 
and founded in beneficence and benignity. If 
we recognize God as our sovereign Lord, we 
must admit our place as subject and subordinate 
to Him. And if we receive him as lawgiver will 
we not at the same time receive the law at his 
mouth without resistance or calling it in ques- 
tion ? Because it is right in itself, and that which 
is morally right is founded in the very being 
and perfections of God. Our God can not con- 
ceive anything wrong in itself, much less can He 
command or require of His subjects anything 
but that which is right, just and good, (b) The 
institution of the Sabbath is founded in the infi- 
nite love of God for man ; it belongs to that which 
is morally right, and always has held its place 
in the moral economy. For this reason it has 
rightful claim.s upon all classes of people, upon 
believers and unbelievers, upon Christians and 
non-Christians. The', Sabbath has just claims 
upon the moralist if he will be consistent with 
his own claims to morality. 

We are all more or less partial and unfair in 
our treatment of the fourth Commandment. 
While we accept other precepts of the decalogue 
literally we take the liberty of legislating upon this 
fourth command to suit our own convenience or 
comfort, forgetting that this precept belongs to 
the first table of the law, which defines our obli- 
gation to God, and our obligation to God is para- 
mount to all other obligations, (c) This com- 

31 



mand is vindicated and justified, both by rewards 
and penalties. It has both. The one is as cer- 
tain as the other. In keeping any command is 
great reward. God has his eye fixed upon any 
one who may have in his heart that measure of 
love for him that is willing to accept and observe 
a command so essential and indispensable to his 
cause and kingdom in the world. ''For the eyes 
of the Lord run to and fro throughout the whole 
earth, to show himself strong in the behalf of 
them whose heart is perfect toward him." II 
Chron. 16:9. 

Upon the other hand are the penalties. The 
warnings against Sabbath breaking echo and re- 
echo all the way back from Mount Sinai. All 
history is strewn with the wrecks and ruins, the 
sins and sorrows, the woes and losses of Sabbath 
breakers. Observation shows that retribution fol- 
lows quickly upon the heels of this flagrant sin 
of Sabbath desecration, (d) The motive to a 
proper observance of the Christian Sabbath is 
the glory of God. This is the highest motive 
to all worthy action or acceptable service. But 
when we make worldly pleasure, our own per- 
sonal convenience or profit the motive to action, 
then do we begin to antagonize God. It is just 
at this point we break covenant with God. When 
we forsake the house of God upon the Sabbath 
and desert the place of duty to go with the 
world and enjoy the pleasures of this wicked 
world in company with worldly people, then do 
we forfeit the presence and divine protection. 
God has never promised to follow us into for- 

32 



bidden padis or sinful pleasures. But he assures 
us his presence and covenant care when in the 
line of duty. The masses seem to have lost sight 
in our day of the glory of God as the supreme 
motive to action. And alas ! that many of the 
activities of our country, such as the daily press, 
the daily mail and our excellent facilities of travel 
should be subsidized to the desecration of the 
holy Sabbath and the dishonor of our God. 

Second. The Divine standard of Sabbath ob- 
servance is a sanctified Sabbath. The primary 
meaning of this term sanctify is to separate and 
set apart to holy, religious purposes. This is 
the spiritual intent of this command. If the Sab- 
bath on the one hand be for the glory of God, 
on the other hand it is for the greatest good of 
man, and a sanctified Sabbath is for both these 
ends, and beyond this what is there more? 

(a) This standard of a sanctified Sabbath is the 
conception of the divine mind, not the human, 
the act of the divine lawgiver. This same high 
moral standard applies in some measure to all 
that God has claimed to be his own. It applied to 
the ark the S3^mbol of the divine presence. It 
applied to the tabernacle, the holy temple, to the 
order of the priests, the common order and the 
high priest. The whole tribe of Levi was sepa- 
rated, sanctified and set apart exclusively to the 
service of the Lord. 

(b) The same moral standard now applies to 
all that Christ claims as His own. His people 
are to be holy as a body and as individuals. ''Be 
ye holy for I the Lord your God am holy.'' The 

3 33 



collective body of believers is to be holy that 
they may "show forth the praises of Him who 
hath called them out of darkness into his marvel- 
ous light." Even a closer conformity to the di- 
vine standard should be expected under the 
gospel. The gospel is a great advancement over 
the Jewish dispensation; it affords more light, 
greater privileges, and much greater liberty. 
Much more is expected rather than less. Besides, 
our Lord never parlied with, nor lowered moral 
standards. He came not to destroy but to fulfill 
the whole law. And having rendered a perfect 
obedience to the entire law of God himself, He 
asks our faithful observance of it not only be- 
cause it is right, but as an expression of our love 
of him and that which is his. 

(c) This institution of the Christian Sabbath 
has been transferred and incorporated into the 
Christian dispensation and is now a part of it in 
the same sense we now have New Testament 
Christian sacraments. It is not the Jewish Sab- 
bath, but the Christian Sabbath; it is not secular, 
but sacred; it is distinctly Christian in meaning 
and in character, and is an appropriate memorial 
of the resurrection of Christ. ''The Son of man 
is Lord also of the Sabbath." 

It is moral for the moralist, and it is both 
moral and Christian for the Christian. 

(d) There is involved in the Christian Sabbath 
all that is most conducive to the greatest good 
of man. First, the body must have rest, 
next the mind must be relaxed and relieved 
from mental strain. The moral and spiritual 

34 



man must become free that he may worship and 
hold fellowship with God and God's people. All 
this becomes a condition to the spiritual lift, and 
it is not possible for man to make the highest 
possible attainments in holiness without the rest 
of the Sabbath. What we need most of all in 
our country to-day is the spirit and rest of the 
blessed Lord's day. We Americans are living the 
strenuous life, and it is already leaving its fatal 
effect upon our people. 

In this country life has become to many a tre- 
mendous drive and strain. Many men and women 
are worn out before their time by the rapid rate 
of going through life. The quiet rest of the holy 
Sabbath is both a remedy and prevention of this 
premature self destruction. 

(e) But the Christian Sabbath is a divinely 
appointed means to an appointed end and one 
that admits of no substitute. We must admit 
that the Lord has his appointed means of grace. 
To be consistent we must also admit a time and 
day for his w^orship, when men may be at liberty 
to wait upon his appointed means of grace that 
they may grow in grace and in the saving knowl- 
edge of our Lord Jesus Christ. No substitute 
ever has been found or is likely ever to be in- 
vented to take the place of the Christian Sabbath 
in the plan and purpose of God as a means of 
creating Christian character. 

(f) The manner of keeping the Sabbath day 
has miuch to do with this high standard. The 
spirit of the Sabbath is the very essence of this 
w^hole question, for the spirit of the Christian 

35 



religion is cheerfulness, joy and gladness. ''And 
let all of Zion's children be joyful in their King/' 
The Christian Sabbath is but an articulate, living 
expression of what the Christian religion is in 
essence, and what it can do for man in this pres- 
ent life. It can liberate him from blindness, 
burdens and bondage; it can make him a free, 
new man in Christ Jesus. It must be made a 
holy day if it is to become a happy day. Holiness 
is the only royal road leading to happiness and 
heavenly glory. A sanctified Sabbath is a vivid 
foretaste of heaven upon earth. 

Third. The authority for the Christian Sabbath 
is God Himself, and there is no higher authority. 
Nor is there any earthly power that can repeal 
His law. The command has gone forth out of 
His mouth, and it abides from age to age. The 
divine command is authority for the ordinance of 
civil government and is the sure, strong foun- 
dation upon which the fabric of our American 
repubUc is built. The divine command is au- 
thority for legislation by the States or nation for 
the suppression of crime, the protection of life, 
home and all that is sacred. Here upon this 
command of God rests our authority for the civil 
Sabbath as well as the Christian Sabbath. We 
must have the civil Sabbath now if we shall con- 
tinue to enjoy a quiet Christian Sabbath in our 
land. One duty of the State is to promote and 
preserve good morals for the good of society 
and the welfare of the State. The observance 
of the Lord's day is an indispensable condition 
to good morals in a community, and the greatest 
welfare of State or nation. 

36 



CHAPTER V. 



The: Spirituai. Side o^ the; Sabbath Question. 



The present decline from the proper observ- 
ance of the Sabbath is due in part to wrong 
views of the Sabbath as an institution. Perverted 
views of the Sabbath day have led to a perverted 
practice. The masses are losing sight of it as 
a holy day to be sanctified to the glory of God. 
The one element of rest is only a part, and the 
least part of the obligation. To accept the Sab- 
bath and observe it only for rest may be doing 
no m.ore that is moral than the animal does, 
when it rests from activity. Rest is a necessity 
to our frail bodies and even a moral necessity; 
but with a view to higher moral obligations. 
There are two sides to the Sabbath question — 
one adapted to man's physical need, the other to 
his spiritual and higher being. The first thought 
in the analysis of this question is that the Sab- 
bath was founded in infinite wisdom and for the 
glory of God. This is just as true of any other 
institution God has founded. His own glory is 
the primary object in all the divine appointments. 
The same is true of His work of creation and 
in His work of providence. God acts in any 
event first for his own glory, but he glorifies Him- 
self in doing good, in making divine appoint- 
ments, and enacting laws most conducive to 

37 



good ends. One of these laws is that of the 
Christian Sabbath. This institution is founded 
in moral considerations which promote the great- 
est possible good of man. This ultimate end, or 
object, can not be attained in any other way ex- 
cept the divinely appointed way. No substitute 
has ever been found for the sanctified Sabbath 
day, nor is likely to be found. Man can not 
supersede God's appointments. Nothing better 
can be invented or discovered. God always gives 
his best of anything. His gifts are never of an 
inferior order. The institution of the holy Sab- 
bath is of the highest order, founded in infinite 
wisdom, goodness, for the good of man and the 
glory of God. The glory of God is the highest 
motive to action. This is the chief and highest 
end of human and of spiritual existence. It is 
to be deplored that the glory of God is not the 
controlling motive with the masses to-day. Con- 
siderations of interest that center in self, such as 
pleasure, gain and profit are supreme with many, 
at least to-day. Perverted views and perverse 
motives lead to a perverse life. God is left out 
of account, the holy Sabbath is desecrated, and 
to many, life is wasted and the end is certain 
ruin. 

Second. A sanctified Sabbath is most promotive 
of man's spiritual well being, and yet this is the 
greatest possible good for man. God is glorified 
by promoting the greatest good of man. All His 
appointments are adapted to the best interests of 
men. Man sins against God and against himself 
when he perverts the divine appointment by dese- 

38 



crating- the Christian Sabbath. It is a day to be 
sanctified, not desecrated. It is sanctified by its 
own proper observance. The end of its appoint- 
ment must be kept in view that we may have 
sanctified motives in its observance. Our highest 
spiritual well being is most promotive of the 
glory of God. ''This is the will of God, even 
your sanctification.'' Our growth in grace is a 
positive command, a personal obligation. If we 
are to reach higher attainments in holiness, we 
must accept and observe the appointed means of 
grace most promotive of spirituality. A con- 
sistent observance of the Sabbath is an efficient 
appointed means of grace. It may be said to be 
central among God's appointments, and includes 
all other appointments. Because, the observance 
of many other appointed means of grace will de- 
pend upon the proper observance of the Christian 
Sabbath. This will apply to the regular uniform 
worship of God and to the observance of the 
sacraments of His house. If the Sabbath day 
be desecrated the w^orship of God will be neg- 
lected, the gospel will not be heard, and in place 
of spiritual grov/th and gain will be apostasy 
and spiritual decline. As the conscientious ob- 
servance of the Christian Sabbath is a sure test, 
a safe criterion of Christian character, so on the 
other hand the desecration of this Holy day is 
depraving and debases man's whole being, even 
depriving him of physical rest. The Sabbath 
dissipater has nothing left but penalty, weariness 
and woe. There can be no peace within when all 
is restless and dissipation without. There is no 

39 



peace, saith my God to the wicked, either in an 
objective or subjective sense. The wicked abuse 
of God's appointments is greater alienation from 
God; increasing enmity toward God, because it 
is a flagrant want of conformity to the law of 
God. 

As to the manner of keeping the Sabbath, the 
best way to rest is not inaction, indolence, nor 
sleeping the day away. What is needed is change 
of conditions. Just such stimulating, refreshing 
influences as are afiforded in the house of God 
upon mind and soul are most promotive of physi- 
cal rest, while the Sunday excursion has just 
the opposite efifect. Dr. Josiah Strong writes, 
''Among the lower class of operatives in France, 
Germany and even in England, the effects of Sab- 
bath dissipation very commonly make Monday 
an idle day. European manufacturers say that 
American workmen earn more than European 
by being able to work on Monday. Wherever 
the continental Sabbath has prevailed Monday 
is the poorest workday in the w^eek, showing that 
Sunday amusements have served to exhaust 
rather than recuperate.''' 

Third. The Christian Sabbath is typical of 
Heavenly rest. This thought is developed and for- 
cibly illustrated in the fourth chapter of the Epis- 
tle to the Hebrews. The divine plan and gracious 
provision is Heavenly rest. The apostasy of 
Israel is used with good effect by way of illus- 
tration as a timely warning against missing the 
heavenly rest. Heaven may begin on earth. A 
sanctified Sabbath on earth is a miniature of 

40 



heaven in rest, worship and spiritual fellowship. 
Glimpses and foretastes of heaven are given in 
advance. One of these is the spirit of the Sab- 
bath. This spirit already enjoyed is typical of 
the full fruition. ''For he that is entered into 
his rest, he also hath ceased from his own works 
as God did from His.'' A sanctified Sabbath on 
earth is a living expression of what the Christian 
religion is in essence and what it can do for 
man in this present life. It can liberate him from 
bearing burdens, and it can make him a new free 
man in Christ Jesus. The Christian Sabbath is 
a visible exponent of the kingdom of Christ ; and 
wherever the kingdom goes the Sabbath goes, 
for the Christian Sabbath is the visible badge 
of the kingdom of Christ. The more we suc- 
ceed in persuading people in turning aside from 
pleasures and secular pursuits, the easier it is to 
persuade them to seek first the kingdom of God 
and His righteousness. Would that pastors and 
preachers would think of this if they wished to 
fill their churches, save souls, and build up the 
kingdom of Christ. 

Fourth. The Christian Sabbath is essential and 
fundamental in the kingdom of God. 

It is essential because indispensable in the for- 
mation of Christian character. The Sabbath 
does not stand alone in Christian character or 
in a community or commonwealth. It is social 
and intimately associated with it are multiplied 
blessings, both spiritual and temporal, to the ob- 
server. It is promotive of reverence for the 
sacred and divine. It is an act of loving obedi- 

41 



ence to God. It is an open, public confession of 
faith, a loving memorial of the resurrection of 
Christ. It is a willing compliance with the law 
of higher attainments and a promised security 
against apostasy. For he ''that keepeth the Sab- 
bath from polluting it, keepeth his hand from 
doing any evil." In general, it is a divinely 
ordained condition to blessedness. The Sabbath 
observer is a blessed man — in basket and in store. 
Even the sons of the stranger, "every one that 
keepeth the Sabbath from polluting it shall be 
blessed ; even them will I bring to my holy moun- 
tain and make them joyful in my house of 
prayer.'' It ought to be a voluntary expression 
of cheerfulness, of joy and gladness in the house 
of the Lord, in the home, or by the way, ex- 
pressive of a comforting sense of relief from the 
past, and filled with an abounding expectation of 
greater blessings to come. 

^'This day God made with cheerful voice 
In it we'll triumph and rejoice, 
Save now O Lord, we plead with thee; 
Lord send us now prosperity.'' 



42 



CHAPTER VL 



The Sabbath and Temperance. 



Delivered at Aiken, S. C, and in many other 
cities and towns. 



"Woe unto him that giveth his neighbor drink " — Hab. 2:15. 

The ultimate end or object of civil govern- 
ment is the glory of God and the greatest good 
of the people. Certain inalienable rights are ours 
by nature, such as life, liberty and the right of 
pursuit. Indeed, the avowed purpose of good 
government is to protect human life and pro- 
mote the safety of all classes. And yet we must 
confess it fails to do so. Human life is wasted 
and multitudes are held in a state of bondage and 
moral servitude in our land. 

The causes of this abnormal condition of so- 
ciety are with the people. They are Sabbath 
desecration and intemperance. These causes in 
turn are prom^otive of vice and crime which 
spawn and spread abroad like schools of fishes. 
The worst condition arises when the civil authori- 
ties condone crime and protect criminals until a 
Law and Order Society comes to the relief of 
the people. 

First. The chief and greatest cause of suffer- 
ing, loss and waste in our land is the liquor traffic. 
So much so^ it has become the absorbing ques- 

43 



tion of the day, involving as it does all other 
moral issues and interests. Three parties at 
least are responsible for the liquor traffic — the 
maker or distiller, the seller and the drinker. 
Perhaps the fourth responsible party is the voter. 

Second. The License System is wrong, morally 
wrong, first, last and all the time. 

(a) It perverts and subverts the very end for 
which civil government was ordained. The ef- 
fect of license is to legalize and sanction a busi- 
ness which God condemns. ''Woe unto him. that 
giveth his neighbor drink." 

The form of license does not affect the moral 
character of the sanction given. There are differ- 
ent forms in force, all different from each other. 
It makes little or no difference whether it is the 
Brooks High License Law of Pennsylvania, the 
Raines Law of New York, the Tax Law of Ohio, 
or the Dispensary of South Carolina. All these 
systems are morally wrong in principle. The 
license system presents the most contradictory, 
inconsistent spectacle possible. For exam^ple, we 
are laboring to build up a nation of free people in 
this land in intelligence, in moral and Christian 
character in the use of such agencies as our ex- 
cellent school systems, Christian churches and 
other moral agencies. At the; same time the 
State legalizes and puts its sanction on a business 
which perverts, undermines, and tends to break 
down the sam.e fabric we are seeking to con- 
struct. It is the amazing spectacle of the con- 
structive and the destructive grappling with each 
other for the ascendency. 

44 



License of the liquor traffic is almost invariably 
sanction of Sabbath desecration, as this traffic is 
a constant violation of law. 

In Pennsylvania the right of petition and re- 
monstrance is permitted, which is in most cases 
simply a protest, or dissent from the action of 
the court in granting license. The law itself, as 
well as the practice, are morally vv^rong in prin- 
ciple. It is wrong for the State or any court in 
the State to legalize a business and put its sanc- 
tion upon anything immoral. Pennsylvania nor 
all the States in the Union can not make right 
any business which God condemns. 

(b) Any law of man that contravenes the di- 
vine law is wrong, can not bind the conscience 
and will eventually be overthown. Laws pro- 
tecting the liquor traffic in any of its forms are 
now rapidly being repealed. 

(c) If civil government means anything, it 
means that all classes and among these the weak 
and tempted classes and their families shall be 
protected. But what are the facts. Those most 
responsible for the crimes resulting from the 
liquor traffic are the parties protected by law. 
The entire business of distilling is regulated by 
law. Wholesale and retail liquor dealers are pro- 
tected in their business by the courts granting 
the Hcense. 

Third. This business is wrong in a moral, spir- 
ual and a religious sense. 

(a) It is the source of the greatest waste in 
all the land. The greatest loss is not a material 
one. A greater one than this is the terrible loss 

45 



of human life from this one cause alone. It is 
a most formidable obstacle in the way of the 
church, a persistent hindrance to the gospel, 
to the Kingdom of Christ, and a blight upon our 
Christian civilization. 

(b) All who believe in God and profess to 
love their fellowmen are expected to stand as a 
unit against this enemy of God and humanity. 
There can be no doubt as to what ought to be the 
attitude of the Christian Church upon the subject 
of the Sabbath question and the temperance ques- 
tion, for these are coordinate. 

(c) We owe it to God, to ourselves and to 
humanity that we do more to save drinking men, 
and to reclaim the drunkard. This neglect may 
be the sin of temperance people. Our blessed 
Master set the example of compassion upon the 
lost. Any one wishing to serve humanity may 
render a distinguished service by stooping to lift 
up these wrecks of humanity, to restore them to 
sobriety and save them for the kingdom of God. 
It was in this way the eloquent John B. Gough 
w^as saved to the kingdom. The drunkard has 
an immortal soul. 

Fourth. It is wrong from a civic point of view. 

(a) The State owes protection to every law- 
abiding citizen, free or foreign born. The w^orst 
criminal in the land may appeal to the civil au- 
thorities for personal protection from violence, as 
did the assassin of President McKinley. If so, 
how much greater the obligation of the State to 
throw the strong arm of protection around the 
weak and tempted classes and shield those who are 

46 



the victims of avarice and intemperance. Upon 
the same principle the State owes protection to 
the laboring classes in the full enjoyment of rest 
on the Sabbath day from the oppression of cor- 
porations, that these classes may enjoy the right 
to worship God. 

(b) The liquor traffic leads to intoxication and 
intemperance, but the State pronounces intoxica- 
tion a crime and punishes it as such. Our civil 
courts are involved in the most glaring incon- 
sistency and contradictions. The same court that 
grants the legal sale and use of intoxicants, 
brands as criminals the unfortunate patrons of 
the legalized saloon. In this they condemn their 
own action. 

(c) In some States and places a saloon can not 
be located within a certain distance, say 200 feet, 
of a church, schoolhouse or the court-house. The 
inconsistency of such ethics is m.ost obvious, 
when a distance of a few feet constitutes the dif- 
ference between right and wrong. And upon cer- 
tain days such as the Sabbath, election day, and 
in some States, on holidays, the State declares the 
open saloon a menace to the public good ; but can 
not prove it to be right and safe the rest of the 
week. The Hquor traffic has grown up in our 
land into a national, blighting, wasting, consum- 
ing curse. It is without doubt the greatest cause 
in all the land to-day of crime, suffering and loss. 
Yet in the face of these facts the saloon is still 
legalized in many of the States. 

The secret of the licensed saloon is found lurk- 
ing in two of our most subtle, formidable foes, 

.47 



or forces; these are interest and appetite. It is 
very much the same in reference to Sabbath dese- 
cration. The alluring elements leading to this 
sin, in the last analysis, are the love of pleasure 
and profit. 

Fifth. It is wrong in a financial, economic 
point of view. It costs more to take care of the 
poverty and criminals made by the business than 
all the profits from license. The material loss is 
great, but a greater loss by far is the immense 
loss each year of life. The loss in wages must 
be added to the material loss. Corporations have 
discovered that sober men are safer and do bettei 
work than drinking men. It is not easy to esti- 
mate the loss incurred by the State each year of 
those who would otherwise be producers and pro- 
viders from this one cause. 

But the greatest loss by far is spiritual and 
eternal — the loss of the immortal soul. The 
pertinent question now pending is, will the 
American people allow the Christian Sabbath to 
go, and the infamous liquor traffic to remain? 



48 



CHAPTER VII. 



The: Sabbath and Civil Govi:rnme:nt- 
The: Ordinance o^ God. 



Text: "For there is no power but of God; the powers that be are 
ordained of God— Rom. 13:1. 

Two theories are entertained in our day and 
country upon this question of Civil Government. 
These theories are opposites and antagonistic, 
and therefore can not both be true; but the one 
being true, the other will be found to be untrue. 
The one theory and the true one is, that Civil 
Government is divine, that the powers that be are 
ordained of God. The other or opposite theory 
is the Secular theory, that is, that God has noth- 
ing to do with Civil Government and that Civil 
Government ought to have nothing to do with 
God. You have the same two conflicting theories 
entering even into the question of education. 
Here again we have the right and wrong, the 
human and divine. 

There is no such thing possible as a complete 
education that overlooks man's moral, spiritual 
and higher being. Now when we come to apply 
these two theories to the problem of Civil Govern- 
ment, we meet the divine at the very outstart, be- 
cause Civil Government is the Ordinance of God. 
He has clothed this divine appointment with the 
4 49 



dignity of an ordinance, and when He appoints 
an ordinance He maintains it, perpetuates and 
blesses its observance, and this one as much as 
any other. 

You may remember in the reading of this les- 
son, one paragraph covering seven verses is oc- 
cupied in defining for us and describing this 
ordinance of Civil Government; because govern- 
ment holds a prominent place in the divine 
economy. Society nowhere exists without gov- 
ernment. We have it in the home, church, school- 
room, in the commonwealth, in the nation and 
among the nations of the world. Not this alone, 
but those who are to administer this ordinance of 
Civil Government are here defined and described. 
Our civil ruler is here called the ''Minister of 
God." He, meaning our civil ruler, is to be 
''A terror to evil doers," and he ought to be ''A 
praise unto them that do well." And why? Be- 
cause he beareth not the sword in vain. He is 
the minister of God to execute wrath or to ad- 
minister justice upon him that doeth evil. That 
sword he has received from High Heaven and he 
is to wield it in the name of the Lord and for the 
good of the governed. The office with us is filled 
by the voice of the people, but the office itself 
is of divine appointment. All our powers, for 
the most part, are derived, and not inherent in 
us. Our right to preach the gospel and dispense 
the sacraments is a right derived and conferred 
upon us ; so with our civil ruler and law-makers. 
Their authority to rule is divine, and this is one 

50 



reason why lawful government is established, be- 
cause God or the Author of all good government 
is behind it. 

Still more, the relative duties of good citizens 
are here described. We are to ''render to all 
their dues; tribute to whom tribute is due/' etc. 
We may serve God as good citizens if we wish, 
just as we serve Him as workers and worshippers. 
True Christian citizenship is the scriptural ideal. 
The more the Christian, the better the citizen. 
Unfortunately, too many of us, busy with our own 
line of business, neglect these duties we owe as 
citizens in our own communities. The legal 
voters in any ward or borough make the local 
government for at least one year, and the charac- 
ter of that government goes far to determine the 
moral conditions in the community. God has 
given us minds to think and He expects us to do 
our own thinking and our own voting. In the 
economy of Civil Government He uses and blesses 
the Christian, conscientious ballot for His own 
glory and for good government. 

Three propositions are here submitted. The 
first one is : 

I. That the divine appointment enters into the 
very origin and existence of national life, that is, 
the nation gets its existence from God and is 
dependent upon Him for the continuance of its 
existence. Certain properties enter into the life 
of a nation, identical with those of the individual 
citizen, showing the identity of a State and the 
people of a State. Among these properties that 
are in common, the first and most important is 

51 



the one of life. A nation has hfe and it is a Ufe 
not inherent in the nation, but a Hfe derived from 
the First Great Cause of life. All forms of life, 
animal, vegetable, spiritual or national emanate 
from the First Great Source of life. It is God 
who gives life to the nation, and who perpetuates 
that life. God plants the nation and plucks it up 
again at His own will and pleasure. Then there 
is the property of moral character. Nations dif- 
fer from each other in point of moral character 
as people dififer. We may concede that Great 
Britain is at the summit as a nation, in point of 
moral character, and possibly Turke}^ is at the 
very bottom. Why this wide difference between 
these two great nations? It will be found that 
the dift'erence is chiefly one of religion after all. 
Great Britain is a Christian nation, has had the 
Bible and the gospel all these centuries, and these 
are most potent formative influences, but Turkey 
is a pagan nation, having the Mohammedan re- 
ligion, and a religion can not give the people who 
accept it blessings or benefits it does not have, 
such as light, liberty, life and love. Just here is 
the secret of our own national greatness, in part 
at least. We are more indebted as a nation to the 
Holy Bible and the blessed Gospel of Jesus Christ 
than to any other cause. 

But a nation has a mind that thinks, a will that 
determines. It has a conscience to be exercised, 
and there is the great heart of the nation moved 
in sympathy in a good cause, as ours was on be- 
half of the oppressed Cubans in 1898. And then, 
there is national responsibility. God holds a na- 

52 



tion responsible for her actions and her deeds all 
go on record and come up again for adjustment. 
In proof of this we miay refer to God's ancient 
people and nation, the Jews. He formed that 
nation for Himself. He took the nation into 
covenant and wrote for her a constitution and 
gave laws by which the nation was to be guided 
and governed. So long as the nation was obe- 
dient to God and was governed by His laws, the 
nation flourished and rose to the highest plane of 
civilization in the prosperous reigns of King 
David and Solomon. But why did there befall 
this same nation such great calamities as division, 
dismemberment and captivity? Was it because 
a pagan power was mightier and stronger than 
God ? By no means. The cause of her national 
downfall was the unfaithfulness, disobedience 
and sin of the people. 

This leads us to a logical, legitimate inference 
in this connection : God gives to the nations 
of to-day a Standard of Right by w^hich the na- 
tion is to be guided and governed. The ques- 
tion is : What is this standard with us as a na- 
tion? I answ^er: It is not the church, with us. 
It is in England, France, Spain and Russia, but 
not with us, and will not be under existing sys- 
tems. We do not believe the church is absolutely 
infallible. Rome believes that doctrine, but the 
protestant does not. We find this infallible 
Standard of Right for the nation in the Holy Bi- 
ble, God's gift to all people. This inspired word 
throws its plain, transparent light upon the duties 
and relations of life, that we may know what 

53 



they are and then address ourselves to them that 
we may get the reward of well doing, but the 
very essence of this whole book of Revelation is 
the divine Will. The will of Christ as expressed 
to us in His word is the Standard of Right for the 
nation, and upon all national questions. There is 
not a single question that ever ought to enter into 
our minds upon which His word is silent. His 
will is law for the nation as well as for the Chris- 
tian. But at this very point we meet the most 
critical, decisive question: Whose will shall be 
obeyed? We are between two opposing wills, 
each contending for the mastery over us. Shall 
we, upon the one hand, obey the sovereign will of 
Him who is our rightful Supreme Sovereign, 
Lord and King, or shall we yield ourselves, our 
service, and become the victimized dupes and vas- 
sals of His and our adversary, the devil ? I verily 
believe the devil is willing to let us have our 
forms of worship, if he can only reserve for him- 
self the right to rule over the State. He well 
knows that if he can govern the State he can un- 
dermine the entire fabric of Civil Government 
and cause the nation to rock upon its foundation. 
I submit, if this is not the very process by which 
the nations of antiquity were overthrown and are 
now only known in history. Decay and dissolu- 
tion of ancient nations began with the perversion 
and corruption of Civil Government, and our be- 
loved nation of today can not become an excep- 
tion to this same penalty if we allow the process 
of corruption to go on. The remedy is the ad- 

54 



herence to those divine principles upon which our 
Repubhc was founded. 

The second proposition is the end and object 
for zuliich Civil Government zvas ordained and is 
to be administered. 

The end or object is two-fold. The immediate 
end is the greatest good of the people ; the ulti- 
mate end the glory of God. But it holds true here 
as elsewhere, w^hatever is most conducive to the 
good of the people at the same time redounds 
to the glory of God. The institutions God has or- 
dained by which men are first liberated, enlight- 
ened and lifted up to the highest plane of civili- 
zation, are most conducive to His own greatest 
glory. His own greatest glory upon earth is re- 
flected in the greatest good of m.en. Every or- 
dinance of His, whether the sacraments of His 
house or Civil Government in the State, are to re- 
dound both to the glory of God and the good of 
humanity. 

The State eixsts for the promotion of moral 
interests as well as for civil or political purposes. 
It is so expressed in the body of most of our 
State constitutions. 

Certain great mioral questions are all the time 
appearing upon the surface and thrusting them- 
selves forward for discussion and settlement by 
the people. Once American slavery was the 
moral issue agitating the public mind, and that 
question w^as met and settled. Other questions 
of equal im.port are forcing themselves forward, 
and today we are confronted with the questions 
of Temperance, the license question, and Sabbath 

55 



observance. These living moral issues have their 
immediate bearing upon the welfare both of 
Church and State. 

First. The Christian and civil Sabbath stand or 
fall together. We are in a crisis upon this ques- 
tion. The Sabbath has been losing ground in our 
country for a quarter of a century. The Chris- 
tian Sabbath is the stronghold of our civilization. 
If we lose this Sabbath in our land, then will we 
soon lose our hold upon all that is sacred and 
divine. The Christian Sabbath stands for about 
all that is divine in our religion. It is still a sign 
and a common bond between Christ and His peo- 
ple. We hold this heritage in common. It is 
His Sabbath and it is ours. While He looks to 
His own professed followers and depends upon 
them to observe and defend this divine institution, 
the State has her duty in the case. The Sabbath 
has a place in civil law and for this reason the 
State has a Sabbath law. Tw^o reasons may 
here be given for this : 

a. It is to the civil authorities we look to pro- 
tect us from the encroachments of Sabbath break- 
ers. The State can prevent and suppress the base- 
ball game, the open race course, the Sunday news- 
paper, the circus show and much of the desecra- 
tion now so prevalent. 

b. It is to the State we look to guarantee to 
us our God-given, inalienable rights. One of 
these is the right to rest on the Lord's day. 

Second. Along wnth Sabbath desecration must 
be classified intemperance, because intemperance 
is a sin. It is a sin against God, against self and 

56 



society, and the civil authorities brand intoxica- 
tion a crime. It has been conceded that the Hquor 
traffic is the greatest cause of suffering, crime, 
loss and waste in all the land. It is the greatest 
destroyer in all the land to-day, the chief obstacle 
to the Gospel and hindrance to the Kingdom of 
God, and yet this liquor traffic gets the sanction 
of the State as a lawful business. But license is 
wrong, morally wrong in principle. It is in direct 
conflict with the teachings of God's word. The 
State can not license this liquor business without 
sin. It is giving sanction to that which God con- 
demns. God has not been silent upon this ques- 
tion, but has been speaking in emphatic words of 
condemnation, ''Woe unto him that giveth his 
neighbor drink, that putteth the bottle to him and 
maketh him drunken also.'' Intemperance, the le- 
gitimate product of the liquor traffic, has become 
our great national curse, blighting more Amicri- 
can homes and destroying miore promising lives 
than any one cause, but fortunately the public 
conscience is being quickened into life as to the 
enormity of this evil. Now there is new light and 
Tiope for a better future. Other social evils are 
receiving attention. Our social system may be 
renovated and reformed in the near future. Bet- 
ter conditions in society and brighter prospects 
are already coming into view. 

Third proposition : — The duty of acknozvledg- 
ing the Divine One in the government or by the 
nation. 

We owe this for obvious reasons. We won 
our national independence by the helping hand of 

57 



Almighty God. We have ever been dependent 
upon Him. He has been our friend all along 
throughout our national history, in war and in 
peace. It becomes us as a debt of gratitude to ac- 
knowledge His sovereignty over us. Besides it is 
a settled doctrinal fact that the Lord Jesus Christ 
is already our Sovereign Lord and King. He has 
won the superior place of power and authority 
upon his own merit and now holds that place 
both by promised reward and divine appointment, 
because he humbled himself and ''Became obe- 
dient unto death, even the death of the cross, 
wherefore God also hath highly exalted Him and 
given Him a name which is above every name, 
that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow 
and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is 
Lord, to the glory of God, the Father.'' 



58 



CHAPTER VIII. 



Tke: Sabbath and Christian Citizenship. 



Text: "And the Government shall be upon His shoulders." 
Is. 9:6— 2d CI. 

The love of God, man and country springs 
from the same root. Patriotism is love of coun- 
try, kindred and national institutions. The rule 
will hold good — the better the Christian the more 
of the patriot. The best friends of our country 
are most sensitive to its present dangers and sen- 
sible of present duty in the face of impending 
perils. That is true friendship which, seeing the 
faults of another, points them out that they may 
be corrected. It is the height of folly to close 
our eyes against the dangers which threaten our 
national welfare. Already, a concentration of 
forces may be observed combining together and 
arising in the heavens, which may yet burst over 
our heads, as the storm sweeping onward leaves 
death and destruction in its pathway. The seeds 
of evil germinate, and will soon bear fruit and 
bring forth the harvest of ruin if permitted to 
grow. 

The true method of moral reform, indeed of 
any reform, may not be in spending our strength 
in crying out against the evils that spring up 
and spread abroad, but in offering and applying 
the remedy that will cure the evils, correct the 

59 



wrongs, that our national life may be saved and 
prolonged. Fortunately, a remedy may be found 
for any and every evil known to exist, if we will 
only apply ourselves to the search and seek for 
such in the right direction. As the principles of 
good government are of divine origin, the rem- 
edy for national evil, or any evil, is also divine. 
As the Holy Bible unfolds laws, precepts and 
principles which in their application are adapted 
to govern men in all the relations of life, this 
same word of God revealed to men will provide 
the remedy for every ill, will preserve and con- 
serve the relations and institutions ordained of 
God to exist among men. 

Government is the ordinance of God. The 
powers that be are ordained of God. He has 
appointed government in the home, church and 
State, the true institutions ordained for the high- 
est well being of men upon earth. At the same 
time provision has been made to conserve, apply 
and make effective that government ordained and 
given of God. Conservatism underlies all God's 
works and is interwoven into the fabric of every 
divine enactment. He does not leave His ap- 
pointments a prey to the destroyer, nor does he 
leave those institutions ordained for the good of 
men to the mercy of our foes. He who creates 
can and does preserve. In redemption God comes 
to the rescue and saves the victims of evil from 
the grasp of the destroyer. Redemption as a 
remedy vv^ill apply to every evil known to our 
earth. It is infallible because divine. Being 
infinite it can m.eet every want of man, any and 

60 



every emergency that may arise among men. 
God himself organized society, for man stands in 
need of it, and provided that society shall be con- 
served, so that the social fountain may be kept 
pure. He commiands and insists that government 
shall be organized and administered according 
to His own will, for His own purpose, and that 
purpose His own great glory in the good of the 
governed. The divine mind has been expressed 
upon the mutual interests and relations existing 
between God and men. The divine will has been 
fully and clearly declared upon the ordinance and 
administration of government, whether it be 
social, civil, or ecclesiastical. We are not left 
without a revelation from God, when the problem 
is that of setting up a government, enacting laws 
for the people, and adopting a constitution by 
which the people are to be bound, and thereby 
creating the State. The State is not the contin- 
gency of any chance or accident. But it is the 
creature of divine providence. The nation, like 
the citizen himself, having a divine author, is, to 
to speak, a moral being, and it has all those prop- 
erties in common with the individual citizen, who 
is an integral part of the State. Such is the 
property of life itself, moral character, mind, 
will, conscience, heart and moral responsibility. 
The nation is amenable to a higher power than 
itself for the rectitude of its conduct, laws and 
the administration of the government. There 
is a higher tribunal than that of earth, to which 
the oppressed of all lands may appeal, and the 

61 



fear of that higher tribunal should be a motive 
to the enactment of good laws and a righteous 
administration of them. 

The acknowledgment of the divine one in the 
affairs of government becomes morally necessary 
to obtain the divine protection and secures His 
abiding blessing. The acknowledgment of the 
God who is above us and over us, upon whom we 
are dependent, becomes a moral duty. God plants 
the nation and plucks it up again at His own will 
and pleasure. There is a national duty in the 
case, because of our national dependence upon 
Him and our indebtedness to Him. 

The Lord Jesus Christ should be acknowl- 
edged, because through his mediation blessings 
come to the State and nation. God the father 
does not now deal directly with earth since the 
fall, but He confers with men through the medi- 
ation of His son. The Lord Jesus Christ is the 
medium between heaven and earth to-day, and 
He is the only medium. His sacrifice as a pro- 
pitiation effects reconciliation between God and 
men. In His mediatorial office He makes inter- 
cession on behalf of the nation as well as on be- 
half of the church. The administration of the 
divine government has, by the Father, been com- 
mitted to the Son, and the Son has authority 
delegated unto Him to dispense blessings upon 
all. LTnto our Lord Jesus Christ all power upon 
earth and in heaven has been committed, and in 
His office as mediator He has a kingly authority 
to confer with men and nations, and claims na- 
tions as His subjects. The Lord Jesus is King 

62 



of nations as well as King of Saints. The nation 
owes submission and allegiance unto Him as 
King. Its duty is to acknowledge Him in His 
Kingly office, and to own His authority. His 
claim, however, to His Kingly office, is founded 
upon the divine appointment, and is not left to 
the will or caprice of men. The Father who 
made Him the blessed and only potentate. King 
of Kings and Lord of Lords, made this earth 
itself, the kings, princes and potentates of earth, 
the nations and empires of the world, the sub- 
jects of His authority. The subject should ac- 
knowledge and honor His sovereign just as the 
servant must obey His Lord, and this subjection 
should be voluntary and not enforced. 

Again, another fundamental principle is that 
the law of God is a rvtle of action to the nation. 
The nation must adopt some standard of right 
to which may be referred all moral questions, 
that is, all questions involving right and wrong; 
and the nation is all the time grappling with just 
such questions. Now, the point is this : By what 
standard of right shall these questions be de- 
termined? Not the church in this country; the 
church is the standard of right in some countries, 
but not in this country. We don't believe the 
church is absolutely infallible. Some believe 
that doctrine, but the protestant does not be- 
lieve it. The Holy Bible is the infallible standard 
of right, by which all questions are to be tested 
and determined. The law of God is adapted to 
national life as well as to the life of the Christian. 
The Hebrew kingdom under the theocracy is an 

63 



illustrious example of national prosperity, great- 
ness and even grandeur under the guidance of 
God through the medium of His word. The 
same cause will be followed with the same effect. 
Let the word of God become the guide of the 
nation. Let the law of the Lord be made the law 
of the land, and government will be made easy, 
and the ends for which government exists and is 
to be administered will be easily reached. The 
supreme law-giver assumes in all His revelations 
the analogy between national life and the moral 
life of the individual. The precepts of the 
decalogue, for example, are to have their appli- 
cation in national conduct and character, that we 
may have national peace, prosperity, and may I 
add — national perpetuity, because only upon the 
basis of righteousness can these blessings be en- 
joyed. Let us look into the case fully and become 
convinced of the claim God's law has upon the 
State and nation. 

(i) The nation stands in need of the Sabbath 
day — the day of rest is as much a necessity to 
the nation as to the individual Christian. The 
necessities in the case of any nation God fore- 
saw when He appointed the Sabbath a day of 
rest. The demand for rest by all the land was 
sufficiently illustrated by the appointment of the 
Sabbatical year. The captivity of seventy years, 
it is calculated, was the exact penalty for the vio- 
lation of the Sabbatical rest by that nation to 
which this law was given to be observed. We 
need in this land a National Sabbath law, or 
rather to accept and observe the one God has al- 

64 



ready given. It is estimated that 3,000,000 men 
are compelled to work upon the Sabbath in this 
Christian country. The government sets the ex- 
ample of violating this positive commandment 
of God, and it is already bringing forth its bit- 
ter fruit; for if we sow to the winds we shall 
reap the whirlwind. The running of the trains 
upon the Sabbath day encourages the daily press 
to issue a Sunday edition, because the people will 
buy and read this stuff. In this way demorali- 
zation is spread abroad as some contagious dis- 
ease or pestilence stalks abroad throughout the 
land; and w^hen either the individual conscience 
or the public conscience becomes so debased and 
depraved we can steal time from God, then it be- 
comes easy to steal from one another, to lie, cheat, 
and commit any crime, and there is not a crime 
in the whole catalogue of crimes but seems to 
be on the increase. No wonder, when the force 
of example on almost every hand is educating 
the public mind to violate that precept of God's 
law founded even in nature, and so necessary to 
all our best interests, moral, material, social and 
spiritual. While God looks first to His own pro- 
fessed followers to accept and observe His Sab- 
bath and our Sabbath, still the State has her 
obligations in this case that good morals may be 
preserved and prevail. 

(2) The marriage relation is appointed of God, 
and should be regulated by divine law; the 
social system can not remain pure without. In 
the same connection let it be said the civil oath 
is the ordinance of God. The interests of truth 
5 65 



and justice call for its administration, and yet 
the oath, an ordinance of God, is abused, and its 
administration is shamefully profaned. 

(3) Our republic came into existence and was 
fostered throughout its period of dependence 
under the influences of the Christian religion. 
The spirit of our independence was begotten of 
over-holy religion. The patriotism of our Revo- 
lutionary fathers was Christian patriotism. They 
were baptized in the sea of suffering and passed 
under the clouds of adversity. The convictions 
of truth took firm hold upon their great souls. 
They knew the value of liberty from personal 
experience, and they were willing to pay the high 
price thereof. The Holy Bible was their text- 
book at home and their manual in camp and upon 
the field of battle. In it they learned their cause 
was right; they fought for liberty and won, for 
God was on their side. The early history of our 
Republic is positively Christian. How, then, can 
we deny the Lord our Redeemer because we have 
grown to be a great nation, and are perhaps now 
the richest nation on the globe. But it sometimes 
happens that the inherent resources of a nation 
miay in the end prove to be her own ruin — the 
Roman empire for example, weakened by luxury 
and dissipation of wealth, became an easy prey 
to a foreign power, and those sturdy northmen 
swept down over the empire when it was com- 
paratively asleep, and its downfall was an easy 
question. Once the chief danger a nation had 
to fear was from foreign foes. As President 
Harrison once observed ''our greatest foes to- 

66 



day/' said he, ''are not external but internal/' 
Internal foes are a greater peril to government 
and to our free institutions than any foreign 
power. There is no nation from which we have 
any cause to fear, and yet there are growing 
evils, planting their roots deep in the soil which 
do threaten our national life. Chief among these 
is the American saloon. The saloon is a for- 
eign institution transferred to our shores ; it has 
fastened itself upon us like a leech, that it 
may grow rich at the expense of the public 
good. The saloon is a most insidious foe to 
all our best interests, moral, intellectual, so- 
cial and spiritual. Already, it has become a 
domxinant factor in politics. When the saloon 
gets power and is permitted to use it, we are in 
the hands of a cruel m^onster. The resort of 
baser elements, it fosters crime, imxpoverishes the 
people, and is loading the State w^th her heaviest 
burdens. As forces in nature tend toward a 
center, the worst elements or classes in the 
country center in and about the saloon. It is idle 
to talk about regulating this deadly monster — w^e 
never think about regulating the demons of de- 
struction, but only of casting them out. We can 
accept nothing short of the complete overthrow 
of this great destroyer. We ought to make no 
compromise with any evil, much less with such 
a one as this. We must unite our moral might 
and manhood for the final overthrow of this 
hquor power in our land. We owe it to ourselves 
and posterity that we do so, because the liquor 
traffic is our greatest destroyer to-day. It is the 

67 



greatest hindrance to the kingdom of God in all 
our land. The business is in direct conflict with 
the word of God. For this and other reasons, 
our license laws are wrong, morally wrong in 
principle. God has spoken, saying, ''Woe to 
him that giveth his neighbor drink,'' etc. License 
of the drink traffic is sanction of that which God 
condemns. Any law of man that contravenes the 
divine law is positively wrong. 

(4) A foreign spirit has been imported into 
our country, and is rapidly ingrafting itself upon 
the life of our people. Once we were American 
in our spirit of independence, in customs, laws 
and institutions; but now a foreign spirit begins 
to bear rule over us. We are not in fact as inde- 
pendent of this foreign influence as we once were. 
This foreign spirit is hostile to the very spirit and 
genius of our free institutions. It will fashion 
and mould us if we do not check and control it. 
We may expect to be foreignized and fashioned 
after an alien rule, if we do not Americanize and 
evangelize the masses that come swarming upon 
our shores every year. Christianize them and 
they will become loyal and patriotic citizens. 
The conflict between labor and capital is growing 
more aggressive and intense each year. It is of 
such a spirit, in view of the interest involved, 
that strife has grown to be bitter and threaten- 
ing. Passion becomes intense, mobs collect, riot 
reigns, until the arm of the civil law becomes 
paralyzed and helpless. The only solution of the 
labor problem is to be found in the gospel. The 
application of its principles will adjust diflfer- 

68 



ences, protect the right, subdue strife and passion, 
arbitrate in case of differences, so as to avert 
the horrors of war. The Prince of Peace makes 
peace among men through and by the gospel of 
peace. Indeed, the need of the hour is more of 
Christ in poHtics and the recognition of the 
divine one in the affairs of men. The Revolu- 
tionary fathers felt their need of divine guidance ; 
they sought after it and obtained it as subsequent 
events show. 

A great work remains to be done here in our 
own land on behalf of Christian liberty, the high- 
est type of liberty. And Christian citizenship is 
the high ideal held up before us to which we are 
to attain. In no other way is it possible to ap- 
proximate and attain this gospel ideal but by the 
truth of Christ. This, as the means, is indispensa- 
ble to the end, ''For if truth makes you free ye 
shall be free indeed.'' ''He is free whom Christ 
makes free; all else are slaves besides.'' The 
gospel of Christ should be brought to bear upon 
the masses, as the infallible remedy for all 
human woes. As the guarantee to the perpetuity 
of our liberties, civil, and religious, the truth of 
Jesus Christ is more powerful and reliable than 
armies, navies or all the wisdom of men. Through 
the pulpit and press, in the Sabbath school, 
the missionary society, the young peoples' society, 
in every way possible, let the good seed of the 
word be scattered abroad until brought to bear 
upon the masses in our land; then may we hope 
to be free in fact as well as in name. 

"As Christian patriots, as lovers of God, 

69 



home and native land," we owe it to our God and 
to posterity that we use the means so necessary 
to reach this most desirable end. The end is the 
very acme of human progress and national grand- 
eur. The opportunity is now in our grasp to 
take up and hold the first place among the nations 
of the world in point of influence and advantage. 
We may govern the nations of the world in the 
sense of setting before them an example of a self- 
governed, independent people. If so, we must 
first be free at home, and we must secure our 
heritage of freedom at home beyond alienation 
or perversion. Let the standard of our faith and 
action, the ambition of our consecrated lives, be 
in bringing our beloved nation into allegiance 
and loyalty to the King of Kings and Lord of 
Lords. Then, all that is dear to patriotic hearts 
and sacred as a heritage to posterity, will be safe 
and secure. For it is true, both of temporal and 
spiritual interests, as applies either to a citizen or 
nation, that only is safe which has been given up 
to God. That which is most precious to us, 
whether the soul as yet within us, or the heritage 
of earth round about us, becomes precious to God 
and the object of His precious care when given 
and committed to Him to keep. I close with the 
sentiment of our beloved American poet, James 
Russell Lowell : 



70 



*' Careless seems the great avenger, 

History's pages but record 
One death struggle in the darkness 

Twixt old systems and the word. 
Truth forever on the scaffold, 

Wrong forever on the throne; 
But that scaffold sways the future, 

And beyond the dim unknown — 
Standeth God behind the shadow, 

Keeping watch above his own." 



71 



CHAPTER IX. 
The; Sabbath and Pre:sbyte:rian Synod. 



Address before the Presbyterian Synod of 
North Carohna, at Statesville, N. C, 1906. 



Dear Fathers and Brethren : — I appreciate 
this opportunity of appearing before you, and 
most sincerely do I thank you for this courtesy 
you have conferred upon me. I come in the 
name of our Common Lord and King, and in the 
interest of His cause and Kingdom. Some sacri- 
fice has been made to be with you to-day, as I 
have traveled oved six hundred miles to fill this 
appointment. This town of Statesville is dear 
to me as the place of my first advent in all this 
Southland. 

I represent both a cause and a church, a 
cause which we in common hold as a sacred 
heritage — that of the Christian Sabbath. I repre- 
sent a church in whose veins there flows some of 
the old blue blood of the Reformation period. 
There is blue blood, there is that which is bluer, 
and blood not so blue. There are Presbyterians 
straight and strong, Reformed Presbyterians, 
Cumberland Presbyterians, A. R. Presbyterians, 
and United Presbyterians. This last is a union of 
Presbyterians which God has blessed, for it has 
just about tripled its membership in the forty- 
eight years of its existence. I feel at home among 

72 



a people who accept the confession without re- 
vision or division, who, Hke myself, grew up 
under the shorter catechism, and hold on to the 
inspiration of the Holy Bible. 

I. 

The cause I represent lies at the very foun- 
dation of our faith, and touches our most sensi- 
tive nerve center. The observance and preser- 
vation of the Christian Sabbath is a cause worth 
pleading, worthy the most intelligent and loving 
devotion. 

Indeed, the Christian Sabbath stands for and 
represents about all that is divine in our Chris- 
tian system of religion. It testifies to the divinity 
of Christ; confirming His claims to be the true 
Messiah; commemorates His resurrection from 
the dead; celebrates His finished work, and an- 
nounces His exaltation to a waiting world. 

But, it is the cause of the Christian Sabbath 
I plead in distinction from the Jewish Sabbath, 
a sanctified Lord's day — not a holiday nor a 
Continental Sunday. 

In the present fierce conflict of forces, mental, 
moral and material, now going on all around us, 
the Holy Sabbath is the central object of attack; 
indeed, it is the very storm center. The activities 
and allurements in operation all around us on 
Sabbath and week day are already turning our 
hearts after the world. Already our wandering 
eyes and wayward hearts begin to look and long 
in wrong directions, and we are almost ready 
to go the same way the world goes. Much like 

73 



the story of the two persons who suddenly met 
at a street corner. One of these was a cross-eyed 
man who sharply rebuked his neighbor, saying 
to him, ''Why don't you look where you are 
going?'' His neighbor just as promptly replied, 
"And why don't you go the way you look." The 
trouble is, we are beginning to go the way we 
look, imperceptibly, unconsciously, though it 
may be, yet none the less certain. It is the same 
old story we have in poetry of the pernicious 
effect of coming in contact with and looking upon 
evil. 

At this hour in our history there is need of 
pausing to examine the foundations of our faith, 
to strengthen the right, to rectify our wayward, 
erring practice until that which can not be shaken 
may remain. Upon this question, like many 
others, it may be safely said the law of attain- 
ment will be found to be the true theory of 
retainment. If we would hold fast the heritage 
of our belief, and strengthen the foundations 
of our faith and practice, it will be by advancing 
onward to higher and holier attainments. It is 
mere conceit to suppose we have reached per- 
fection along any line of attainment. It will be 
conceded that the missionary spirit is the ag- 
gressive, progressive element in ;the Christian 
religion, because, as you expand, enlarge and ex- 
tend the cause of religion into the remote regions 
of the world, you strengthen the same cause at 
home. The law of attainment is the true method 
of retainment, and so is it in the cause of the 
Sabbath. 

74 



There is a wealth of meaning in the Christian 
problem, a field for study and investigation, a 
profound moral principle speaking to the moral 
sense within, a new world, it may be, in Chris- 
tian experience, a scientific problem, if you please, 
all involved in this modern problem, the Chris- 
tian Sabbath, so vital to every Christian life, 
every Christian home, and indispensable to the 
welfare of both Church and State. In the in- 
vestigation going on under modern searchlights, 
this institution will be able to stand the test as 
well as any other, because of the comJorting fact 
that the Christian Sabbath is a divine institution 
founded in the divine appointment, and fortified 
behind divine law\ What fact is stronger in our 
holy religion than the divine authority, as, for 
example, in the sacraments, and what greater 
force at w^ork anywhere than that of divine law ? 

This is inherent, therefore, in this divine in- 
stitution, enough of the divine appointment, and 
authority, of reward and retribution to safeguard 
it against all the assaults and criticisms made 
upon it. The criticism.s aimed at this one insti- 
tution of our Lord are more malicious and 
malevolent than all the attacks of the higher 
critics upon the Pentateuch. What do the seeth- 
ing masses of Sabbath breakers, at a seaside 
resort, for example, care about the Pentateuch; 
what do they know about it? Their only con- 
cern is present personal pleasure, regardless of 
divine law or personal responsibility. Only a 
few persons are found able or willing to enter 
that class who champion the cause against the 

75 



integrity of an inspired Bible. But this old 
wicked world is the inveterate, avowed enemy 
of a sanctified Sabbath and, unfortunately, this 
same old world can command and control many 
of the activities and agencies that enter into our 
present civilization. Many of these agencies are 
good and right in themselves, as, for example, 
the daily press is good and useful as a medium 
of intelligence, and yet it is made subservient 
to Sabbath desecration. The daily mail is a bless- 
ing v/e all appreciate, and here again, this ac- 
cepted blessing is made subordinate to the cause 
of Sabbath desecration. The facilities of travel, 
so convenient and comfortable in our day, so 
necessary in carrying on the work of the Lord, 
are subsidized by this same enemy, and made to 
do service in the cause of Sabbath desecration. 
We are sometimes compelled to wonder what 
there is left that is not at the mercy of that cruel 
monster that stalks abroad through the land, de- 
fying God and enslaving man. The two idols that 
are worshipped every day by millions of people 
in our land are the love of pleasure and the 
love of gold. The worship of these idols is just 
as fatal as any other in the end. 

11. 

But, now, what of the defense for the preser- 
vation of the Sabbath, as against its desecration? 
This much : Presbyterianism is celebrated for such 
conservative properties as grace and grit, pluck 
and perseverance, and these will come to the 
relief in such an emergency as this. Here is a 

76 



cause that appeals to our most heroic devotion — 
one worthy our truest loyalty and love for our 
Lord, and all that is His. This cause calls for a 
union of forces; a Federalation of Christian 
churches and Christian people for the better ob- 
servance, the preservation and the perpetuity of 
the Lord's day. A union of Christian forces 
for the preservation of the holy Sabbath is the 
very logic of Christian unity. We may differ in 
points of minor importance, but we openly claim 
to have one and the same Lord, but one faith. 
We hold to the same Holy Bible, and can we not 
say we have one and the same Sabbath, and that, 
the Lord's day? 

The need of organized effort has become obvi- 
ous and conclusive. This is the day of organized 
effort along moral and religious lines. Most mis- 
sionary movements are organized movements. 
The same is true in the domain of moral reform, 
but much greater is the need on behalf of the 
Sabbath, because of the virulent opposition it 
must face. There is increased force and power 
when the units are united and act as an organized 
body. If it be true, ''The wicked flee when no 
man pursueth," some one has observed they 
make m^uch better time when somebody is after 
them. Do we not act upon this very principle 
when we employ a police force? 

We have Scriptural authority and encourage- 
ment for organized efforts along the line of 
moral reform. The same argument may not 
apply to evangelism, but it evidently was intended 
to apply in the cause of moral reform. Upon 

77 



the highest authority it is stated, one represen- 
tative character shall chase a thousand, and by 
the addition of a single unit you multiply the 
efficiency and strengthen the force ten-fold, for 
two, says the same authority, shall put ten thou- 
sand to flight. This is neither a dream nor an 
empty vision. It has been verified in our own 
time. Anthony B. Comstock has, on different 
occasions, chased his thousand vile lepers who 
were seeking to pollute society. It is a well known 
fact that he has done miore than any other Ameri- 
can to purge the United States mail of obscene 
literature. Only recently did he expose a party 
who were engaged in publishing a certain cata- 
logue in which the nude art was made to appear, 
and these publishers were put to flight. If one 
Anthony Comstock could do so much for the 
cause of purity in our country, what might two 
have done? 

Granted that the first one in the order of these 
units may be a Presbyterian, the second unit may 
be a Methodist, the third a Baptist, and the fourth 
an A. R. P., and so on indefinitely. Increase of 
power is the promised product of unity. 

It is conceded that the Kingdom of Christ is a 
spiritual unit. Why, then, should not its own in- 
herent forces and units com.bine together and 
cooperate both upon the offensive and defensive, 
when the question is so vital to the Kingdom as 
that of the Christian Sabbath? Fourteen of the 
larger evangelical denominations in this land are 
found w^illing to cooperate together, looking to- 

78 



ward a better observance, and having in view the 
preservation of the Christian Sabbath. 

The story was told some time ago in one of 
our large union meetings of the unity of the 
churches as an organization : A layman was giv- 
ing an address of welcome to a conference in 
Pennsylvania. He said the different branches 
of the visible church correspond to the different 
branches of the military department of our nation, 
or of any nation. For example, said he, yonder 
is the Methodist Cavalry as the pioneers leading 
the w^ay, and doing good service. There is the 
Lutheran Artillery pounding away after their own 
fashion. Here is the Presbyterian Infantry sup- 
porting all, and over yonder in the water is 
the Baptist Navy. 

In closing, I may say, a desire has been ex- 
pressed by petition in circulation to hold a State 
Sabbath convention this winter. I should like an 
expression, as a Synod or as individuals, upon 
this, or upon any other question relating to this 
work. 



79 



CHAPTER X. 



Address before the First State Sabbath Con- 
vention, held in West Market Street M. E. 
Church, Greensboro, N. C, January 15, 1907. 



The history of certain voluntary movements is 
precious to every Christian, because of what has 
been accomplished by these movements. 

The American Bible Society sprang into ex- 
istence to give the Bible to the world. The 
American and Foreign Missionary Society was 
formed to send the living missionary to the 
nations of the world. The American Tract 
Society is at work to-day offering the gospel to 
any one on a single page or leaflet. But the 
American Sabbath Union came later in history 
than any of these movements, for the better 
observance and preservation of the Christian 
Sabbath. 

First. It is a national movement. It is similar 
and parallel with the Lord's Day Alliance of Can- 
ada, that has already accomplished so much for 
the people of the dominion. The American Sab- 
bath Union is national in extent and in its field of 
operation. But best of all it is national in spirit 
and solicitude for the nation and every member 
of the nation. The attitude taken and held is 
that Sabbath desecration is a sin against God, 
and that sin has its certain penalty. The nation 

80 



must pay the penaly of national sin, but in this 
case the innocent must suffer with the guilty. 
This theory is sustained by history, both sacred 
and secular. Something may be done to pre- 
vent this national sin and avert the penalty of 
sin. 

Second. This movement is distinctly Christian 
in its character, operation, end and object. The 
object of its mission is the better observance, the 
preservation and perpetuity of the Christian Sab- 
bath. This movement came upon the stage of 
action at a needy time, at a dark hour in 1888, 
when Sabbath observance was on the decline ; it 
came to the front to plead the cause of the Chris- 
tian Sabbath throughout the land upon its own 
merits. 

The Christian Sabbath came from Christ, and 
is for Christ and His Kingdom. It is a sure 
criterion, a certain exponent of Christian char- 
acter. It represents about all that is divine in 
our system of Christian religion. 

The American Sabbath draws the distinction 
between a day made sacred by divine appoint- 
ment, hallowed and sanctified from the very be- 
ginning, and the modern holiday. But the dissi- 
pation of the modern holiday leads on rapidly 
in the direction of the Continental Sunday, so 
detrimental to true religion and a higher civili- 
zation. It is out of the question to preserve and 
perpetuate the Christian Sabbath unless we ob- 
serve the sacred character of this divine 
appointment. 

Third. It is an organized movement. There is 
6 81 



the National, as a center, with offices on Broad- 
way, New York City, and a board of directors. 
Then there are State organizations, auxihary to 
the National. New York State is an auxiliary. 
New England is one auxiliary, with two secre- 
taries. In the Northwest, States are sometimes 
grouped together as auxiliary. Within a year 
past an organization has been effected upon the 
Pacific Coast. (The North Carolina Sabbath As- 
sociation was organized at Greensboro, N. C, 
January i6, 1907, auxiliary to the American Sab- 
bath Union.) A Field Secretary is at work in 
most of these auxiliaries. In addition to this the 
Union is represented on the Board of Directors 
by a Vice-President in each State, in Alaska and 
in the Territories. Rev. Robert F. Campbell, 
D.D., is the worthy representative of North 
Carolina. 

Still more, fourteen of the larger evangelical 
denominations in our country are united in this 
federative movement to preserve and perpetuate 
the Sabbath day. Upon this one question all 
these denominations, and others, can unite, and 
this is one of the strong bonds that binds us 
together in Christian unity and cooperation. It 
is a new argument for the spiritual, and may I 
not say the visible unity of the Church of Jesus 
Christ on earth? We have in common one and 
the same Holy Bible, one Lord, and one Lord's 
day. 

Fourth. This is a conservative movement. The 
Sabbath Union holds the conservative view of 
the Sabbath. 

82 



(a) It accepts this Sabbath as of divine ap- 
pointment. Indeed, our entire system of Chris- 
tion rehgion is of divine appointment. The 
home, the sacraments and the Christian Sabbath 
are all from the Lord and for the Lord and His 
Kingdom. ''The Son of Man is Lord also of the 
Sabbath." The change of day has the same 
sanction the change of sacraments has. 

(b) The literature of the American Sabbath 
Union is conservative. Between thirty and forty 
publications, consisting of booklets, leaflets and 
tracts, such as those of Dr. Josiah Strong and 
Dr. Herrick Johnstown, and many others, are 
published. 

An efficient part of the work is in the use of 
literature. Millions of pages of this Sabbath 
literature are sent afloat over this land each year. 

"The leaves of the tree are for the healing of 
the nations." 



83 



CHAPTER XL 



Address delivered at the Second State Sabbath 
Convention of North CaroHna, held in the City of 
Charlotte, on November 21, 1907, by Rev. W. 
H. McMaster. 



This address may be said to be somewhat like 
that which C^sar said in his Commentaries of 
Gaul : All Gaul is divided into three parts. 

First. My first division is a brief review of the 
past year. The work of the past year covered 
even full months of active service in this cause. 
During this period precisely 100 addresses and 
sermons were delivered in the interests of this 
cause. But twelve of these were delivered in 
South Carolina, and seven in Atlanta, Ga. Dur- 
ing this same period our first State Sabbath Con- 
vention was held. If, now, we may add the ad- 
dresses delivered on that occasion to the above, 
we have an aggregate of over ninety addresses in 
all delivered, to our personal knowledge, in the 
State upon Sabbath observance. The State has 
been traversed in the course of this work from 
the extreme West to East, and from North to 
South. All sections of the State have been visited 
without partiality, and I could not express a pref- 
erence of one section over another. In this same 
period of time, the North Carolina Sabbath Asso- 
ciation was organized. As to the good influences 

84 



awakened, God only knows. It is enough to 
say God has been in the work. Many have been 
the tokens of His presence and special favor. 

Second. The work of the present year. This 
will be to carry forward the work already organ- 
ized to greater attainments. These points may 
be emphasized: 

(a) We now have a splendid State Associ- 
ation, one of which wt may justly be proud as 
compared with others. It is compact, concrete, 
and without a single discordant element. The 
design of our State Association is to unite into 
active cooperation all evangelical denominations 
of this State for one specific purpose. Let me 
say, this association is the latest auxiliary to 
come into the National Union, so far as we know. 
The association has already taken root, and is 
now recognized as one of the aggressive forces of 
the State. 

(b) Our cause is the cause of the Lord. The 
Christian Sabbath is one of divine appointment, 
to be held sacred by every loving, believing Chris- 
tian. Temperance is a cause, civic righteousness 
is a cause, and so is Christian citizenship. The 
w^orld-wdde missionary movement is a most 
worthy one, but here is a cause that combines and 
comprehends all movements for the Kingdom of 
Christ. The Christian Sabbath is an indispen- 
sable factor in the Kingdom of our God. Elimi- 
nate the Sabbath day, and what progress would 
we make along other lines of Christian work, 
worship, or growth in grace. 

85 



(c) The avowed object of our State Sabbath 
Association. We keep this in sight, on the first 
pages of our program: It is, ''The Observance 
and Preservation of the Christian Sabbath/' We 
do not even say, this better observance of the 
Sabbath. That might reflect upon the past, and 
we mean no reflections. We are deaUng with a 
present day problem, and seeking to estabHsh 
moral conditions that may control the future. 
We are willing to leave the past behind if we 
can govern the present and secure the future. 

(d) This object will commend itself to the 
worthy as a worthy one. The better the Sabbath 
is observed in any community, the more people 
will attend church. The better it is observed in 
the home, the more and better the Bible will be 
studied, the higher and greater will be the attain- 
ments in the Christian life and Christian 
character. 

But this is only one side of the question, the 
altruistic view. There is another side to this 
question with which we all must reckon, and 
every nation must reckon. It is a fact now, and 
one that must be faced, that Sabbath desecration 
is a sin. It always has been a sin. All reliable 
history deals with it as a sin. God's word treats 
it as a sin, and sin is the most serious fact we 
are called upon to face. 

(e) This movement has at heart the well-being 
of every individual, the peace of the home, the 
spiritual life and growth of every church in the 
State, the peace and prosperity of State and 
nation. 

86 



(f) This object is one to which all our 
churches and Christian people can subscribe. 
We hold this much in common — one Lord, one 
Bible and one and the same Sabbath, a day we 
may call the Lord's Day, for it is His day in 
every sense. The standard of Sabbath observance 
we hold up before the people of this State is a 
sanctified Sabbath, in the sense in which we ac- 
cept this term sanctify — to separate and set apart 
to spiritual uses. This is precisely the sense 
Moses made of the term in his application of the 
term to Sabbath observance, ''Sanctify the Sab- 
bath day to keep it holy as the Lord thy God 
hath com.manded thee.'' 

Third. My third division is an earnest appeal 
to the people of the State for their uniform sup- 
port and cooperation. The merits of the question 
and the worthy object of our association warrant 
us in making this appeal, not as beggars, for we 
are not, but as benefactors. 

In order to establish our association upon a 
good working basis we need : 

(i) To estabhsh headquarters at som-e central 
point in this State. 

(2) To estabhsh a department of Sabbath 
literature for use throughout the State. 

(3) To take steps looking toward making our 
State Association self-supporting. These are 
conditions necessary to the success of the work. 
These conditions are possible. This is our op- 
portunity to come up to this help of the Lord 
and help turn backward this swelling tide of 
Sabbath desecration. We may, under God, do 

87 



much to lift aloft the divine standard of a sancti- 
fied Sabbath before the eyes of the American 
people. The crisis is upon us. Shall we rise up 
as a unit and meet this crisis for our common 
Lord and His blessed Sabbath? 



88 



CHAPTER XII, 



Address before the North Carolina Conference 
of the M. E. Church, South, at Durham, N. C, 
December ii, 1908, by Rev. W. H. McMaster. 



Bishop Wilson and Brethren of the Conference: 

This is my first appearance before this confer- 
ence, and I come to you by appointment of our 
State Sabbath Convention. I appreciate very 
much this cordial welcome and these kind words 
by the Bishop. Let me congratulate this Con- 
vention upon the honor conferred upon your de- 
nomination by the choice of Bishop Hendrix to 
preside as President over the late Federal Coun- 
cil, recently in session in Philadelphia. This was 
a worthy compliment bestowed upon your church. 
Within the last two years our State Sabbath 
Association has been organized, and at the first 
State Sabbath Convention ever held in this State, 
Dr. Kilgo, of this conference, made the opening 
address, and that address was the keynote of the 
Convention. I shall only detain you with a few 
points of interest in our work. 

First. Our cause is divine. It is the cause of 
God, and the Christian Sabbath is a distinct factor 
in the Kingdom of God. The Sabbath is a divine 
appointment supported and maintained by divine 
law. This appointment stands upon equality with 

89 



all other divine appointments, such as the sacra- 
ments of His house. In fact, these have been 
changed from the Old Testament to the New 
Testament Christian sacraments; but the Sab- 
bath, being a moral institution, has been trans- 
ferred to the Christian dispensation, for it is both 
a moral and a Christian instituton. 

Second. This divine appointment is both for the 
good of man and the glory of God, and is pro- 
motive of the greatest good of man. There is 
involved in this Sabbath question all that is con- 
ducive to the highest well being of man. This 
applies to every component element in his being. 
The body needs to be rested; the mind must be 
rested from the constant strain; the moral and 
spiritual need opportunity for development. Our 
God finds pleasure and is glorified according 
as His people are benefited and blessed. But this 
ought to be mutual. Unfortunately, m,any of the 
activities of the day, such as the daily mail and 
the daily press, and the excellent facilities of 
travel God has given, all blessings in themselves, 
are subsidized to the desecration of the Sabbath. 
God ought to have the honor of every blessing 
given us to enjoy. 

Third. This divine appointment has its claims 
upon all classes of people. It is for all, in all 
ages. As an institution, it is universal and per- 
petual. Even the moralist, if he would conform 
to the revealed standard, must accept and observe 
this one commandment in the moral law. But to 
the Christian, this command has absolute claims 
upon his observance, because it is both moral and 
Christian. 

90 



Fourth. Unfortunately, this divine appointment 
is disregarded and desecrated in our land by the 
masses of people, and our God is greatly dis- 
honored. The changed conditions of modern life 
have, to a great extent, lessened and loosened 
our regard for moral and civil law. It must be 
conceded crime is on the increase in our land. 

In fact, an epidemic of murder prevails just 
now in some sections of our country. It is possi- 
ble most of this may be traced back, in its in- 
cipient stages, to the sin of Sabbath desecration, 
for he who offends in one point is guilty of all. 

Fifth. Now the remedy : This is the practical 
side of the question. This is the time when reme- 
dies are most in demand. The rem.edy for intem- 
perance is prohibition and total abstinence. Dur- 
ing the summer of this year, a congress of learned 
physicians, from many parts of the world, among 
these the eminent Dr. Koch, assembled in Phila- 
delphia to investigate tuberculosis, and if possi- 
ble, to find a remedy for this disease. This was 
in the interest of humanity. An International 
Sabbath Convention was held in Pittsburg, Penn., 
1908, on the first and third days of December, in- 
clusive, to deliberate upon the Sabbath question, 
with a view to reorganization and more aggres- 
sive action. This subject was before the great 
Federal Convention but recently in session in 
Philadelphia, so that this old question has be- 
come a fresh, new, and living one in the imme- 
diate interest of the Kingdom of God. It is one 
for your conference and all the courts of the 
church. 

91 



In closing, if we shall succeed in preserving 
the Christian Sabbath in our land, we must have 
(i) Christian cooperation. Here is one question 
upon which all Christians may agree, and be- 
lievers of all denominations should meet and con- 
centrate their forces to save the Christian Sab- 
bath. (2) We need organization. We now 
have the American Sabbath Union, and the North 
Carolina State Sabbath Association, auxiliary to 
the National organization. The avowed purpose 
of our State Sabbath Association is the better 
observance and preservation of our blessed 
Sabbath. 

Let me ask at your hands, through your com- 
mittee on Sabbath observance, action on our be- 
half. We ask the open door and the cooperation 
of your pastors and people. 



92 



CHAPTER XIIL 



The: Sabbath and the: Kingdom oi^ God. 



The Christian Sabbath is a distinct factor in 
the Kingdom of God. Wherever the Kingdom 
goes the Sabbath goes as the articulate exponent 
of the Kingdom. You can not eHminate the Sab- 
bath and still have the Kingdom in all its fullness 
any more than you can eliminate law from gov- 
ernm.ent. The Christian Sabbath is elementary 
and one fundamental in Christ's Kingdom.. The 
Kingdom of God is spiritual in its nature and 
comprises a complete system of morality. This 
system is divine, for it has its origin in the divine 
being, and is both perfect and perpetual. This 
is revealed morality. But revealed morality is 
inherent in the Christian system. You can not 
have genuine Christianity without revealed mor- 
ality. The Sabbath as an institution has held a 
place in the moral system from the creation of 
man. As an institution it is peculiar to all dis- 
pensations. As it has been in the past, so it will 
continue in time to come, for the principles of 
morality are universal and perpetual. The essen- 
tial principles in one dispensation are inherent in 
another. When Christ came to establish His 
Kingdom in our world He did not suspend the 
law of the Sabbath, but accepted and obeyed it. 
He rendered a perfect obedience to the whole law 

93 



of God. He was authority for the change of day 
from the seventh to the first day of the week, 
''For the Son of man is Lord also of the 
Sabbath." 

The change of day was made exclusively on 
His own account, and now the Lord's day is to 
be a perpetual memorial of His own resurrection 
from the dead. He commended its observance 
to His disciples in all ages of the world by com- 
mitting to them the charge of teaching posterity 
''To observe all things whatsoever I have com- 
manded you.'' 

Wherever His gospel is preached in all the 
world, the law of the Sabbath is to be proclaimed, 
for the gospel of the Sabbath is the gospel of His 
Kingdom. It proclaims the good news and glad 
tidings of rest, and tells of one who Himself 
rested and now offers this precious boon of rest 
to weary ones in our world. 

The Lord Jesus Christ is the supreme King 
and highest Authority in His Kingdom. The 
Father gave Him authority and appointed Him 
to found His Kingdom in this world. It is the 
mediatorial Kingdom of our Lord Jesus Christ. 
As King He is not only Lawgiver, but the Chief 
Executive in the administration of His Kingdom^ 

He who is Sovereign in authority over His 
subjects is at the same time most gracious toward 
all His subjects. He offers them rest, and guar- 
antees this rest to them in this life. Rest is a 
positive command, an abiding law of His King- 
dom. He would have all men and all nations 
observe the law of rest. The law itself is univer- 

94 



sal; all His subjects are expected to accept and 
observe this command in common with all other 
precepts inherent in His Kingdom. 

The laws of His Kingdom are as wise as they 
are gracious. He well knows His people need 
rest in this life and relief from its oppressive 
burdens. He has wisely provided this day of 
rest as a present relief from weariness of body 
and mind, from the exactions and cruel oppres- 
sion of corporations. 

He provides in the administration of His gov- 
ernment that this law of rest shall be protected, 
maintained and enforced by offering rewards for 
its consistent observance and by inflicting penal- 
ties upon its violation. This law, in itself and 
its application, is altruistic, for the greatest pos- 
sible good of God's people, for His own glory and 
in the best interests of His Kingdom. The rest 
of the Lord's day is most conducive to the best 
interests of His Kingdom., as the inherent condi- 
tion of God's Kingdom everywhere is one of rest, 
good order, peace and quietude. The Kingdom 
of God in all ages and in its diversified resources 
is a perfect unit, and so of the law of the King- 
dom. The moral law is a perfect unit. You 
can not be moral in the sight of God while you 
desecrate and profane His holy day, ''For who- 
soever shall keep the whole law, and yet offend 
in one point, he is guilty of all." 

Multitudes of Sabbath breakers in our day are 
evidently unconscious of the sweeping condemi- 
nation they bring upon themselves by their fla- 
grant desecrations of the Lord's day. Their prac- 

95 



tice of temperance and all their good works they 
may be doing will not condone, nor atone for the 
sin of Sabbath desecration. 

God requires a uniform, consistent observance 
of every precept in the moral law. The spirit of 
obedience is the law of love. The essence of the 
moral law, and of the gospel is love of God and 
man. Love is a controlling law of the Kingdom 
and finds a personal enjoyment, supreme pleas- 
ure and profit in a sanctified observance of the 
Lord's day. 

A personal delight in this holy day is a revealed 
condition to delight in God Himself. It is when 
sanctifying this day God made in which we may 
be glad and rejoice, ''then shalt thou delight thy- 
self in the Lord.'' This step toward God is a 
high, holy attainment in grace; a degree in glory 
already begun. This sweet day of heavenly rest 
upon earth is the morning dawn of the Kingdom 
already come, the fruition and felicity of glory 
come down out of heaven to man upon earth. 



96 



CHAPTER XIV. 



A Brief History of the Lord's Day Alliance of 
North Carolina. By Rev. R. F. Campbell, D.D., 
President of the Alliance. 



In the early months of 1906, the Rev. W. H. 
McMaster, Ph.D., working under the auspices of 
the American Sabbath Union, visited various 
cities and towns of North Carolina with the view 
of enlisting the cooperation of ministers and 
other Christian citizens in creating a State Sab- 
bath Association in connection with the national 
organization. 

The following call was issued on April 18, 
1906: 

*'We, the undersigned ministers and members 
of the Church of Christ, representing different 
denominations, do hereby unite in calling a con- 
vention of Christian people to assemble in the 
city of Greensboro, North Carolina, within a 
year, for the purpose of considering and discuss- 
ing means and measures looking toward a better 
observance of the Christian Sabbath ; and, fur- 
ther, for considering the advisability of organiz- 
ing a State Association in connection with the 
American Sabbath Union." 

There were tv/enty-seven signers of this call, in 

response to which the first Convention met in the 

West Market Street M. E. Church, South, 

Greensboro, N. C, January 15, 1907, at 7:30 

7 97 



p, m. The Rev. R. F. Campbell, D.D., Vice- 
President of the American Sabbath Union for 
North Carolina, was called to the chair. The 
Rev. J. W. Goodman was elected Secretary, and 
appropriate committees were appointed. 

The following extracts from the reports of the 
Committees on Organization and on Resolutions, 
Rev. Drs. S. B. Turrentine and G. H. Detwiler, 
chairmen, will suffice to set forth the principles 
and purposes of the Association : 

''Your Committee on Organization beg leave 
to report as follows : That we now proceed to 
organize the North Carolina State Sabbath Asso- 
ciation as auxiliary to the American Sabbath 
Union, and upon the same basis, viz : The divine 
authority and universal and scriptural obliga- 
tion of the Sabbath, as declared in the revealed 
will of God, formulated in the fourth command- 
ment of the moral law, interpreted and applied by 
our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, transferred 
to the Christian Sabbath, or Lord's Day, and 
approved by its beneficent influence upon per- 
sonal and national life. 

''The object of this State Sabbath Association 
is the observance, protection, preservation and 
perpetuation of the Christian Sabbath as a day 
of rest and worship, and for this purpose to 
gather and diffuse information through the press 
and public addresses, and by any such other 
means as shall be deemed expedient and proper.'' 

The Committee on Resolutions submitted the 
following, which was adopted: 

"Whereas the Sabbath is a divine institution, 
the necessity of which we find in the natural 

98 



constitution of man, and the authority for which 
we find in the exphcit command of God's Word : 

''Resolved, That its observance is obhgatory on 
all men who have knowledge of the revealed will 
of God, regardless of their professed relation to 
institutional Christianity, but that there is an 
especial obligation resting upon all professing 
Christians to observe and preserve it as a day of 
worship, meditation, and rest. 

''Resolved, That in view of the encroachmxcnts 
of business and social life, there is need of 
renewed care on the part of Christian people in 
the observance of the day and the creation of a 
cleaner and keener Christian conscience as to its 
obligation and sanctity. 

"Resolved, That we urge upon the ministry of 
the various evangelical churches the necessity of 
pressing with renewed earnestness by preaching, 
by circulating literature, and by personal per- 
suasion, the duty of all men to this sacred day. 

"Resolved, That as the citizenship of our Com- 
monwealth is overwhelmingly Christian, we 
demand the enactment and enforcement of such 
law^s as will protect the people in the observance 
of the Sabbath as a day of worship, and the pre- 
servation of it as a day of rest." 

The Association has held annual conventions, 
since its organization at the Greensboro Conven- 
tion, as follows : Second Presbyterian Church, 
Charlotte, November 20-21, 1907; Washington 
Street M. E. Church, South, High Point, Octo- 
ber 20-21, 1908; Central M. E. Church, South, 
Asheville, November 9-10, 1909. The fifth an- 
nual convention has been called to meet in Ra- 

99 



leigh October 31-November i, 1910, and prepa- 
ration is being made for the largest and most 
notable meeting ever held in the State in behalf 
of the Christian Sabbath. 

The conference discussions at the conventions 
have given opportunity for free interchange of 
views on a great variety of practical phases of 
the Sabbath question, such as the Bearing of 
Sabbath Observance on the Individual Life, on 
the Home Life, on the Education of Youth, on 
Evangelism, and on National Prosperity; Dese- 
cration of the Sabbath by the Daily Press, by 
Sports and Amusements, by the Open Post-office 
and United States Mail, by Trains and 
Travel, etc. 

For the formal addresses delivered at the 
evening sessions, the Association has been fortu- 
nate in securing the services not only of promi- 
nent pastors, but also of such educators as Presi- 
dent J. C. Kilgo, of Trinity College, and Presi- 
dent W. L. Pbteat, of Wake Forest; of such 
men in public and political life as ex-Governor 
R. B. Glenn, Judge Jeter C. Pritchard and Judge 
T. J. Shaw, and at the Asheville Convention Rev. 
Geo. W. Grannis, D.D., of New York, General 
Secretary of the Lord's Day Alliance of the 
United States, was the guest of honor and deliv- 
ered a rousing speech on ''One Day of Rest in 
Seven for All Who Toil." 

The conventions have not been satisfied to 
rest in discussions and addresses, however edify- 
ing and able, but have sought to arouse the Chris- 
tian people of the State to action along definite 
lines. The High Point convention issued an 

100 



appeal for ''an energetic crusade'' against Sab- 
bath desecration, and suggested that the fight "be 
directed first against Sunday mails and Sunday 
newspapers" as subtle and powerful foes of Sab- 
bath rest and worship. 

The Asheville convention requested the church 
papers of all denominations to publish from time 
to time special issues dealing with the various 
phases of the Sabbath question, and recommended 
the formation in every community of a local 
organization for the protection of the day. The 
same convention provided for the sending of 
an overture to the Congress of the United States 
''to enact such laws as will afford a continuous 
rest of tw^enty-four hours once every seven days 
to all government employees." 

The name of the American Sabbath Union 
having been changed to the Lord's Day Alliance 
of the United States, a corresponding change was 
made at the Asheville convention in the name of 
the State organization, which is now known as 
the Lord's Day Alliance of North Carolina. 

Since the adjournment of the last convention 
the Alliance, through its officers, has given two 
practical illustrations of the value of an organiza- 
tion for the protection of the Sabbath, the one 
local in its immediate bearing, the other national 
in its scope. The following letters, without com- 
ment, will put the reader in possession of the 
issues in each case : 



101 



Nove:mbe;r 26, 1909. 

Dr. R. F. Campbell, President Lord's Day 
Alliance, Asheville, N. C: 

Dkar Sir: — At a meeting of the Board of 
Governors of the Asheville Motor Club this after- 
noon your letter to Dr. Fletcher in regard to the 
proposed club run to Hendersonville next Sun- 
day was read, and after a general discussion of 
the matter by the gentlemen present, the follow- 
ing motion was offered and adopted, and I was 
instructed to transmit the same to you, which I 
take pleasure in doing : 

After receiving your communication with 
enclosure from Mrs. Pease, a meeting of the 
Board of Governors of the Asheville Motor Club 
was called and after a general discussion a motion 
was adopted that the club run to Hendersonville 
on next Sunday be declared off ; this action being 
in deference to the organization which you repre- 
sent. We will state, however, that we believe 
that a number of autoists will make the trip as 
individuals. 

Very truly yours, 

D. L. Jackson, Secretary. 



AsiHKViivivE, N. C, November 29, 1909. 
Board of Governors Asheville Motor Club: 

Gentmmen: — As President of the Lord's 
Day Alliance of North Carolina, I desire to 
express appreciation of your action in canceling 
the proposed excursion on Sunday out of defer- 
ence to the Alliance, and of the courtesy and 

102 



frankness of the resolution adopted by the Board 
in response to my letter. 

The Board, of course, does not control the 
action of individuals, but the withdrawal of offi- 
cial sanction has not been without wholesome 
effect in many ways. If we can get our fellow- 
citizens to see that the setting apart of one day in 
seven to afford mankind an opportunity for rest 
and worship is one of the most beneficent institu- 
tions established by our Creator, and that both toil 
and pleasure-seeking tend to rob the race of this 
blessing, there will be comparatively few who 
will use their personal liberty to undermine an 
institution which means so much to the well-being 
of mankind. 

Sincerely yours, 

R. F. CampbkIvL, 
President Lord's Day Alliance of N. C. 



Lord's Day Aluanck of^ the U. S., 

203 Broadway, New York. 

Rev. R. F. Campbkli., D.D., Asheville, N. C. 

My Dear Dr. Campbell: — We have been 
informed that recently social functions of a very 
public character have been held in the White 
House on Sunday, and are becoming quite com- 
mon in a semi-official way. Believing that the 
effect of this custom, upon the part of the Presi- 
dent and those associated with him in the affairs 
of state, will result in an increase of this form of 
Lord's Day desecration throughout the nation, we 
are asking all State Sabbath Associations and 
Alliances and kindred moral reform organiza- 

103 



tions to join us in an appeal to the President, 
that he will, by both precept and example, dis- 
courage the custom. 

We send no special form to be adopted. In 
your own way express your convictions on the 
subject, have it officially signed and forwarded 
to our office, and we will attend to getting it 
before the President. 
Sincerely yours, 

G. W. Grannie, 
General Secretary. 



AsHEViivivE, N. C., February i, 1910. 

The Hon. Wm. H. Taft, 

President of the United States, 

Washington^ D. C. 

Dear Mr. Pre:side:nt : — The Lord's Day Alli- 
ance of North Carolina, having been credibly 
informed that social functions of a public char- 
acter are held with increasing frequency in the 
White House on Sunday, would most earnestly 
and respectfully appeal to you as Chief Execu- 
tive of this Christian nation to consider the pro- 
priety of discontinuing the custom.. 

The social usages of the executive mansion and 
of the national capital very naturally set the pace 
for those of the people at large, and it is our sin- 
cere belief that the general prevalence in our land 
of social functions on the Lord's Day would 
seriously interfere with the needed opportunities 
and encouragements to observe on this day that 
quiet rest and devout worship upon which the 

104 



welfare of our nation and the perpetuity of our 
free institutions so largely depend. 

A great host of domestic servants would 
thereby have their labors on Sunday unnecessarily 
increased, and the inducements offered to spend 
the day in pleasures more or less distracting and 
absorbing would tend to draw our people away 
from the cultivation of a quiet home life, which 
is so much needed in our busy age, and from the 
wholesome observance of the offices of religion 
and worship, which are so strongly commended 
by considerations both of duty and of privilege. 

We present this appeal, Mr. President, with 
the confidence that you will give it the careful 
thought which both patriotism and piety demand. 
With sincere respect. 
The Lord's Day AIvIvIanck of^ 

North Carolina. 

R. F. CampbeIvIv, President. 

S. B. TuRRENTiNK, Chmn. Ex. Com. 

J. W. Goodman, Secretary. 



105 



The Alliance appeals with confidence to the 
Christian people of the State for their hearty 
cooperation in carrying out its ends and aims. 
There is special need of financial aid. Our faith- 
ful Field Secretary, Dr. W. H. McMaster, to 
whom is due a large part of the success so far 
attained, has been working for very meager pay. 
and we need more money for publishing and dis- 
tributing literature. Mr. Charles H. Ireland, 
Greensboro, N. C, is Treasurer of the Alliance, 
and will be glad to receive contributions. An 
annual collection should be taken in every church 
in the State for this cause. Will not ministers 
and church officers exert themselves to bring to 
the attention of the various ecclesiastical bodies 
the needs of the Lord's Day Alliance, to the end 
that every congregation may be encouraged to 
contribute regularly to this important cause? 



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